


In the Morning Sun

by il_mio_capitano



Series: Monster [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:41:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/il_mio_capitano/pseuds/il_mio_capitano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The final part of the Monster series. Nothing can be done to help Giles, but is one quiet evening with him and Dawn too much for Buffy to ask for?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

 

Buffy watched the dexterity Dawn displayed with chopsticks in a mixture of shock and awe. She herself was competent enough but found them far too fiddly as weapons to be really effective for speed eating. But Dawn, it seemed, suffered no such impediment and was like lighting across her plate and the others in the centre of the table. Giles, Buffy noted with some amusement, was also watching her with something akin to professional respect.

“What?” Dawn stopped, a piece of chicken suspended mid-air, as she eyed them both in amusement. “We don’t eat out all that much and who knows, with Buffy out of a job now, this might be the last decent meal I get.” She ate the chicken and smiled.

“You’re not about to starve,” Giles said as he thwarted her attempt to steal from his plate. She’d been launching sneak attacks at his duck in black bean sauce all night and he’d been surprisingly adept at fending her off. Being left-handed possibly helped, Buffy mused it must be like playing tennis against a leftie for the first time. Dawn was fast, but to her confusion, he always had the angles covered. Buffy stabbed a hole in some beef that refused to be gripped any other way and contented herself that she was way better with a broadsword than either of the two of them.

It had only been a couple of hours since Buffy had told Robin what she’d thought of him and his suspicions, and his ingratitude, and his whole anti-Giles-ness, and had quit the New Watchers Council. She knew the repercussions of unemployment would kick in at some point, but for one night, having managed to get both Dawn and Giles to herself in Chinatown, she just wanted to relax and enjoy a normal meal. Usually the sisters just grabbed take out and headed to their apartment, but Giles had insisted on paying for a proper sit down restaurant and Buffy had readily agreed, suspecting he would want to disappear as soon as he’d accompanied them home. This way, she got to spin out her precious allotment of time before he inevitably booked out of her life again.

He needn’t have been nervous about meeting up with Dawn. She’d greeted his surprise appearance with a warm hug and a “How’s the curse treating you these days?”

Buffy had felt embarrassed at the bluntness of her sister’s enquiry and the obvious pain it must have caused, but Giles had replied dryly that “Some nightmares are better than others”, to which Dawn had grinned and persisted, “Still sucks to be you then?”

He’d smiled rather warmly at her and she’d beamed back and Buffy had been a little shocked to understand that he was actually enjoying having Dawn tease him. This was in stark contrast to her relationship where everything seemed to be High Drama, the End of the World, or Watcher Goes Walkabout and doesn’t contact his Slayer for months. Giles and Dawn had an enviable connection that she lacked, and Buffy had spent a lot of their meal in silence watching a camaraderie she ached to be a part of.

“Well volunteering at the medical centre I see all sorts,” Dawn was explaining. “It’s gonna be real embarrassing if we have to bed down there ourselves one day. Unless the wage earner is going to go back to using the phrase ‘do you want fries with that?’ ?”

“Hey, I have other skills-,” Buffy began indignantly but Dawn and Giles were already laughing. She stabbed more beef and shook her head in mock disapproval. It was fun to see Giles actually laughing, his face was lit up by yellow paper globe lights that hung around their table like suns, giving him shades of warmth and colour. Everything in her periphery seemed out of focus, only their table mattered to her at that moment. Even Giles’ blue check shirt, though seriously crumpled at the collar, had a charm that was homey and familiar and brought out a green in his eyes she didn’t often see. Perhaps she’d stared too long because his frameless glasses glinted at her briefly before he returned to the conversation with Dawn.

“Buffy mentioned you were hoping to go to study to become a doctor. How are you finding the medical centre?”

“It’s cool. I’m only working in the office so no actual medical stuff. It’s more social work really. Crazy thing on the first day there, oh my god.”  Dawn flapped her hands to get his attention. “A few of us turned up to see what it was like,” she explained, “and they were totally short staffed and the phone was just ringing constantly, so I just grabbed it and started dealing with the calls.” She took another mouthful thoughtfully. “All that apocalypse call handling I did for you guys. End of the World? Please hold.” Buffy watched as Giles smiled warmly again at her sister. “People come in with all sorts of problems they need help with so I’ve figured out a list of contacts at agencies and charities to call around.”

“It’s rewarding?”

“It’s credit towards college and surprisingly not as grisly as a room of wannabe slayers playing spin the bottle. I still want to be a doctor. That’s still my goal.”

“That’s admirable.” Dawn beamed unabashedly at his compliment. “Joyce would be very proud of you,” he added as if worried his veneration alone would not count for enough in her eyes.

He was treating Dawn like she was his family; a niece, maybe even a daughter, and he was totally fine with it. He was not uncomfortable with her directness, her attention, her teasing, her wanting to tell him all that she’d been up to the past ten months and win his approval. And it made Buffy ponder her own relationship with the man who had picked up a curse for killing Glory.  For them there was awkwardness, mis-understandings, and a serious reluctance from him to get close to her. She knew if she were to brush against his shoulder now, he’d probably bolt off to another continent.  But she also knew he trusted her with the big stuff, that he had absolute faith in her ability as the Slayer. She sipped her soda. Was she no more than a very good slayer to him? He’d played a supportive role to her in the past when she at school and missing her dad, but he’d dropped that pretty quickly as she’d got older. They’d even become good friends for a time before she’d died jumping off the tower to save Dawn, and he’d killed Ben, bringing a whole bucket load of vengeance down on himself from Glory’s hell god brothers. Everything had been spoilt by that.

As she mused, she reached for one of the dumplings in sweet and sour sauce, only to have it slip from her chopsticks and hit Giles’ blue check shirt, depositing an impressive red tangy red stain just above his heart.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry.” She grabbed her napkin but he was already on his feet and backing away.

“That’s OK. I’ve got it.” He tried to wipe it but it had already seeped through the cloth like acid. “This shirt was not destined to last the night.” Giving a faint reassuring smile he set off to the restroom.

Dawn waited until he was out of sight and then squealed in undisguised excitement.

“You found Giles! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s hard to know if I found Giles or not. I don’t think he will be staying,” Buffy replied cautiously.

Dawn was beaming in conspiracy. “So, what’s the what with you guys?”

“There is no what,” Buffy answered with care. “We are without what.”

“But he’s back again. You haven’t seen him in like ten months, and he’s all heroic and day-saving and world-saving and most importantly, Buffy’s ass-saving. And you’re telling me there’s no what?”

“This is my Watcher we are talking about. My elderly, ancient Watcher.”

“Still doesn’t mean there’s no what. And he’s hardly ancient.”

“Dawn, nothing has changed.”

“I’m not buying. This is the happiest I’ve seen you in ten months.”

“Nothing has changed for him,” Buffy said sadly. “He still all uncomfortable around me, he’s probably bailing out of the bathroom window now.  And I don’t know if that’s because I’m his Slayer or his daughter or his protégé or anything else.”

Dawn gave her one of those direct looks that Joyce used to favour. “Have you asked him?”

“God, no. I can’t. You know how this curse affects him. I say something nice and he thinks I hate him.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Giles had stopped on his way back to answer his cell phone. Buffy watched with a twinge of hurt that she didn’t know he even had a cell phone, let alone what his number was.

Dawn persisted with her uncomfortable shrewdness, “Does that mean something has changed for you?”

Buffy watched him take the call and be polite yet firm to whoever it was. She knew his body language so well because on cue he removed his glasses, jutted out his chin and started speaking again.

“I don’t know,” she mused aloud. “I don’t honestly know how I feel and in the circumstances, it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying hard not to get too close, for both our sakes. Please don’t say anything to him.”

“I got it. My lips are sealed.” Dawn patted her hand. “You two, are without what.”

“What’s that?” asked Giles, mercifully catching only the very end of the conversation on his return.

“Buffy wants to know, who you were speaking to.” Dawn beamed angelically at her sister while Giles checked under the table to reassure himself his travelling bag was still there.

“Oh that was Robin Wood. He wants you to call him, but you’re not picking up so he tried me. Wouldn’t say what it was about to me, but I suppose it’s Council business.”

“He’s got some nerve.” Buffy exclaimed, but she couldn’t stop herself from adding “And he’s also got your cell number?”

Giles shrugged as he picked up his chopsticks. “Why not? He pays the bills on the thing.”

“For now,” Dawn said shrewdly, and Buffy realised she hadn’t thought of that. Robin had obliged her by paying Giles an allowance the past ten months and she wondered if that would stop now that she’d quit working for him. What if they were all looking at an uncertain economic future? Giles must have been brooding on the same thing because a heavy silence hung over the table. Fortunately Dawn displayed her enviable practical side.

“Maybe we should bag the rest of this to go?”

...

 

They’d taken the subway home largely without incident except perhaps for Giles replying with a glare when Buffy had suggested she should carry his travel bag for him.

“I’m not completely infirm,” he’d muttered. This was a slightly fortunate interpretation given her real motives boiled down to ‘If I have this then you have to come with me and won’t run off again’, so she accepted it.

He was twitchy in the elevator as they made their way to their floor. Dawn was making light conversation and though he was really trying to nod in the right places, Buffy knew he was anxious at the confinement. Perhaps they should have taken the four flights of stairs after all? She’d been thinking more about Dawn’s long day at the Centre. Her own anxiety however, also suddenly spiked as she stepped off the elevator and approached their door with her latchkey in hand. Instinct, honing, smell, whatever it was, Buffy knew there was a vampire waiting for them in her apartment. Behind her Giles had also stiffened in apprehension but that could have been his usual reluctance to enter any private space with her. He was certainly gripping the handle of his bag with heightened intensity as Dawn happily chatted about their life in New York, and her plans, and how happy she was to see him.

“You are so staying here tonight, Giles. We can make up the couch,” Dawn was saying. “It will be like old times.”

“I really wouldn’t want to be in the way.”

Buffy slipped her fingers to the stake in her pocket and pushed the door open sharply. There were very few vampires who had been in her apartment and all had needed the appropriate invitation, but she wasn’t taking any chances. The small reading lamp on Dawn’s desk was the only light and it showed a figure sitting in the armchair, waiting for them.

“Angel?” The man in the dark overcoat rose rapidly and she confirmed his familiar build and features as her first lover.

“Buffy, thank god. I was worried,” he said.

“Angel.” She spoke his name again, snapping her eyes around the room defensively, but he was alone. She let go of her stake and found herself rushing forward and letting him sweep his broad arms around her. It was a familiar gesture in the uncertain world of shadows they both lived in.

“I had to come. You’re in danger, Buffy. All the Slayers are.  The old Watchers are looking to regain their power and reverse Willow’s spell.”

She relaxed visibly and said playfully, “Ah, then I’m afraid you’re too late.”

“Oh god,” He reached for her hair protectively. “I went to your office but Robin said you’d left. I am so sorry.”

She found the contact nice at first. His other hand was on her waist, and their closeness stirred her body’s memories until she realised that the hand on her cheek had a coolness that she suddenly found unwelcome. He’d always lacked a respectable body temperature of course, but it had never mattered to her before, now it suddenly mattered to her a great deal. It was a tiny signal that she wanted more than from a relationship than he could give her, but even so she smiled at the memories of the time she used to think he could give her the whole world. The harshness of the reading lamp emphasised his monochrome appearance. He was black and white to her, devoid of colours other than the ones she’d bestowed on him. He bent his head to kiss her and she felt incredibly self-conscious about that act in front of an audience. She gently broke free and looked for Dawn and Giles behind her but there was no sign of either of them.

“Dawn?”

Buffy fled to the hallway to see the elevator descending. “Oh crap,” she muttered and headed for the stairs at pace. Angel pulled her apartment door shut and followed instinctively.

“What’s going on, Buffy?”

“Giles is here. Well, was here.” She swung round a corner in the stairwell. “I’m guessing Dawn isn’t letting him leave so fast.”

“Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“He will be when I catch up with him,” she grouched. Angel jumped the railings on the last two flights and waited for her at the bottom.

“So what’s the problem exactly?”

Buffy joined him and exited the lobby and out to the street.

“Have you ever tried to entice a wounded kitten to come into your house for milk?” she asked.

He looked puzzled, but offered with a degree of self-mockery, “No, but I’ve eaten a couple.”

She rolled her eyes and spotted Dawn remonstrating with Giles across the street. She heard him stutter, “You, you already seem to have a house guest.” and Dawn flicking a hand dismissively and replying, “Oh, Angel doesn’t count.”

“I think he counts a good deal to Buffy.”

The two of them were too busy arguing to notice the young guy in the hooded sweats make his move. Buffy saw though. She saw as he deliberately barrelled into Dawn and cut the straps of her shoulder purse.

“Hey!” It was Angel that shouted. The thief was startled to see him and Buffy across the street and tugged viciously at the purse, wrenching it from Dawn’s grasp. Giles stepped across but the guy punched him in the chest to spill him cleverly onto Dawn. They both tumbled onto the sidewalk as the robber took off. Angel snarled and took up the chase. He looked incredibly feral and Buffy, fearful he was over-reacting, started to run too. She heard Dawn cry out her name and she worried she'd been hurt in the fall, but she didn’t dare leave Angel to the pursuit alone. Besides she knew Giles would see to it that Dawn was OK: he would not run off if her sister were injured.

The thief was either incredibly lucky in his choice of escape route or knew his way around the back alleys with a studied professionalism. They covered four blocks, jumping sheds and railings and even slipping through a gap in some wire fencing, and though Angel had a degree of bulk in handicap to the guy, he was counter-balanced by a limitless ability not to get out of breath. There was no moon in the sky and the clouds had conspired to block out even the light from the stars. As they ran across some derelict gardens, the vampire finally caught up and pulled the mugger down in a tackle around the waist. The guy kicked and punched in fear but Angel was wearing his vampire face and hit him hard across the jaw.

“Angel, stop!” Buffy shouted, chasing to catch up having almost lost a shoe in the pursuit.

He turned to her, the demon inside him clearly relishing the hunt. He fought to control his features before answering her.

“He might know something about the Old Watcher’s plans.”

“What?” It hadn’t occurred to her their conversation had been interrupted. “No, Giles and I took care of that threat earlier. This is just your regular street robber.”

“But they hired some mercenaries.”

“Yes, demon mercenaries. Pooky-something or other. Big sharp claws, look like Cousin It, probably can’t ride the subway without trench coats and fedoras,” she mused before snapping back to the point. “But we took care of them earlier. This guy is no-one. Let him go.”

Angel climbed off the terrified thief, picked up Dawn’s bag and addressed the street punk menacingly.

“I better never hear of you near that apartment block again. In fact I don’t want to ever hear of you taking another purse in this city ever again.”

The guy nodded readily and scrambled to his feet.

“Or I will finish what we started tonight.”

They watched him run out of sight before beginning their walk back home. Angel smiled. “At least he’ll think twice about hanging round your building again.”

“I don’t need you to do that for me,” she answered sharply. “I don’t need your protection.”

“I wasn’t really going to hurt him.” He looked wounded at her slight rejection. “At least we got Dawn’s things back.”

They crawled back through the wire and walked slowly along the route they had taken to reach her apartment block. Angel had been silent for most of the way but as they touched upon the comfort of paving slabs and street lighting, he spoke.

“So Giles saved the day, huh? Isn’t that a bit risky in his situation? I know a thing or two about curses.”

“It’s a different curse to yours.  Giles’ version makes him unhappy, keeps him away from me.”

He stopped and took her arm gently to seek out her eyes. “And mine doesn’t?”

Buffy felt uncomfortable and really didn’t want to play comparative games.

“It’s just different with Giles,” she said.

“Yes, I suppose it is. He’s always been like a father to you hasn’t he? I know it’s difficult for you, and he loves you, sure.” Angel’s words surprised Buffy. “But not the way I do,” he concluded and she realised she really was going to have a serious conversation with both men one day. But probably best not at the same time.

Angel pulled up in his walk suddenly and stood very still.  “There’s blood,” he said. "I can smell it."

“Eww,” she teased. “That’s really gross, you know.”

But Angel was looking at her in some sort of anguish she didn’t comprehend, and then he started running back to her building. She ran too and saw a small clump of people had assembled where she’d left Dawn and Giles. Feeling like a fist was ripping up her throat; she ran faster, overtaking Angel and pushing her way through the crowd.

On the ground, Giles was laying very still while Dawn was on her knees feeling for a pulse and shouting instructions to the bystanders.

“Giles?”

His check shirt had a lot more dark stain than the sweet and sour sauce she’d hit him with earlier. It had pooled out onto the sidewalk too.

Her sister looked up with angry eyes. “Buffy, where did you go? I can’t stop the bleeding.”

“What happened,” Angel asked.

“He had a knife,” Dawn snapped at him “You guys didn’t see the knife!”

“He stabbed Giles?” Buffy could barely hear her own voice. “Is he going to be OK?”

Dawn shouted at Angel, “Go out to the corner. When the paramedics come, flag them round here. Crap. Come on Giles, don’t do this to me now.”

Buffy’s body succumbed to its own numbness as she watched her sister began CPR. She could hear a siren very distantly but it never seemed to get any louder as Dawn went through the routine again. And again.  And there was still no movement. And again.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

 

“I’m afraid you have to wake up now.” Her head was lightly rocked. “Buffy?”

She came to against Angel’s shoulder, a little disorientated at first as to where she was and what had happened, but the harsh artificial lights and the antiseptic smell of the hospital  shocked her to full consciousness. Having caught a cab to follow the ambulance and, after having been forced to wait on plastic chairs, she, Angel and Dawn had been led to a more private waiting room where she’d just sunk onto a couch and dreamt of Sunnydale and happier times.

Buffy hadn’t spoken since she’d seen Giles lying so alarmingly still on the sidewalk. She hadn’t needed to. There were witnesses aplenty who had seen the knife and were chattering in endless, excited circles. Dawn had worked tirelessly until the paramedics took over, and then cops showed up and dutifully took statements at the scene, but that was all blurred in her peripheral memory. Her starkest focus was on Giles’ lifeless body. She’d seen him peacefully asleep before, and even not so peacefully unconscious, but this time had been different and she knew it.

Angel had spoken with the cops on her behalf. She’d heard bits of his explanation - how he and Buffy had given chase until the guy had dropped Dawn’s purse and gotten away. No, they hadn’t realised the severity of the assault. Yes, it was risky of them. Yes, that was what the police were there for. No, they probably couldn’t recognise the perp again. Yes, they would like to go to the hospital now. Yes, she did look to be in shock but he’d make sure she was OK. Buffy hadn’t really listened to the words, just the sounds they made.

Angel nudged her again on the couch and spoke. “I think there’s news.”

There was indeed: Robin Wood was walking along the corridor rather purposefully towards them. He’d changed into jeans and a dark t-shirt outside of the office and his sneakers squeaked on the polished floor as he drew nearer. Dawn uncurled herself from an armchair and all three rose to hear him.

“They did everything they could, but I’m afraid it wasn’t enough.” Robin’s words were soft and tender and directed as much to Dawn as for herself.  “They couldn’t get him back. I’m sorry.”

“No.” It was Dawn that spoke. “He can’t be…”

Buffy spoke flatly. “Giles is dead.” She wasn’t sure herself if it was a statement or a question.

Robin looked with tired eyes at her and reached a hand to her shoulder in comfort.

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

She shrugged him off, not yet willing to accept his invitation to share her emotions. Instead she dug her nails into the linings of her coat pockets and asked, “Can I see him?”

“Not just yet. I gather they need to tidy things up a bit. They…” He lost the words but Dawn gasped in understanding and even Buffy had a vision of the doctors having had to butcher open Giles’ chest to get to his heart and stop the bleeding, and how that would have created something of a mess. It was cowardly given she had seen far worse as a Slayer, but she did not want to see Giles so cruelly exposed like that. It hurt to think of him laid out on a mortuary slab like a side of beef.

Angel was next to her, offering his presence and his silent support. He reached his fingers for hers and she allowed her hand to be gently tugged from her pocket, but she couldn’t return his grip.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She swallowed down the breath that had been blocking her throat and said, “We need to call Xander and Willow, they should know.”

“I’ll do that now.” Robin turned. “Obviously the Council will pick up the medical expenses.” He looked embarrassed at having brought up the economics so soon when his intention had been to be consoling. Buffy let him go. Robin may have had his suspicions about Giles, may have even been jealous of him on one level, but he was a solid Council leader, never letting pettiness get in the way of a tragedy.

“I should call Wes,” Angel said.

“Why?”

He shrugged, embarrassed too at having moved to practical matters so quickly. “It’s what I do when things like this happen,” he explained.

She nodded distantly, understanding the impulse for someone reliable to come make things easier.

“That’s funny,” she said. “I usually call Giles.”

With Robin and Angel punching numbers on their respective cellphones in the corridor, she turned to Dawn. Her sister had been distrusting and resentful when their mom had died, but then she’d been at school that day and hadn’t witnessed events for herself. This time, Dawnie had been in the thick of the action and she looked pale and impossibly young.

“Are you OK?” Buffy asked.

Dawn shook her head. “This is all my fault,” she said. “I couldn’t stop the bleeding.” Buffy went to her and hugged her. “And I tried so hard.”

“I know you did, honey.”

“And he’s there now. They have him. Glory’s brothers have him, and we don’t even know where that is.”

Dawn collapsed slightly, and Buffy, though she could support her weight easily, dropped to her knees with her. “It’s not your fault, shh, shh,” she said, trying to comb Dawn’s hair out of her eyes.

“But it's so horrible.”

“I know, but you did everything you could. Shh.” she pulled her closer and rocked her sister gently, being strong for Dawn as their mom would have been. There would be time for her own tears later.

...

That though was the start of an unexpected twist on the grieving process, for one by one, they had all come to her to cry at their personal loss. They sought her out because she was the strong one, not realising her stony exterior hid her own distress, and each forced her to share their grief afresh. Largely, they came to rail at the horror and the shock of an outcome they had always known would happen one day, but which felt raw and fresh and soaked in salt just the same. Xander wanted the mugger to be some vampire plot to give him some perspective. Willow wanted to fix what couldn’t be fixed and was twisting herself inside out at not being about to get the final A+ from Giles. Even Faith had called and unexpectedly opened up a little about the death of her first Watcher and how much it sucked. That Giles had died a natural death went unspoken between them all because the consequences of that death were far from natural. So Buffy had let them all grieve and talk of their own loss because mostly she was too numb to even begin to articulate her own.

Then the efficient Mr Henman flew over from London and she at least gained something to actively dislike. Wesley had made inquiries and the family had sent their lawyer to act as executor for Giles’ estate. Mr Henman was in his thirties, keen and smooth, he looked after his hair, wore a very sharp suit and had a mouth of perfect white teeth that he wasn’t afraid to show off.  No, he hadn’t known the deceased personally but he was very sorry for her loss. And then, having dispensed the requisite amounts of sympathy and charm, he displayed his ruthless efficiency by promptly arranging for the body to be shipped back to England for burial. The family had a prior claim it seemed; all his possessions, even his dead body were theirs by rights. Buffy may have understood their position but it still felt like they were stealing Giles from her piece by piece but there was nothing she could do about it.

...

Within five days of that terrible night, she was back in England and attending his funeral. Fittingly, it was a cold and rather dark afternoon. The sun hid behind large black clouds that bannered across the sky. Wesley, Xander and Willow were sitting with her at the back of a somewhat chilly 11th century English church. Angel had flown over with herself and Dawn but was not attending the church service given the circumstances. Vampires may often rise from sacred ground but they still dislike entering churches themselves. Dawn had also expressed the view that Giles would not want Angel to be there anyway, which left an uncomfortable silence in the air on the flight over.

Robin and Faith couldn’t make it. He’d had a crisis to attend to and she’d been injured on her last patrol possibly due to carelessness. Ms Harkness from the coven was there though. She wore a wide brimmed black hat and veil and had asked Buffy with keen incisiveness how she was holding up. It was as if she alone understood the depth of Buffy’s feelings despite her stoic appearance, but Buffy had just nodded and given her the briefest of hugs in return, fearful that if she started crying, she might embarrass herself during the service by never stopping.

The church was full and eager and the Sunnydale contingent had been forced to the back if they wanted to seat themselves together. Wesley explained that like most Watchers, Giles’ family split into the small section that were Watchers themselves, and the larger part that had no idea that demons and vampires existed, much less that their kinsfolk were daily on the frontline in the battle against such things. Giles’ family had taken notable losses when the Old Council had been obliterated so the majority, indeed possibly all, the congregation present that day, would be clueless as to his life and the true horror of Giles’ eternal resting place. Because it very definitely was not ‘the better place’ that nondescript cousins and friends, who’d not known of his role in the Council, kept promising each other with every handshake.

As the pews filled out, people had stopped being interested in her loss and had merely looked at the Sunnydale contingent with curiosity, they didn’t, of course, know her relationship to Giles. They just thought he’d had some American friends, who had flown over specially, and what a ‘nice thing’ that was.

The service began and the congregation sang hymns with a certain gusto.

_I will not cease from mental fight,_

_nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,_

_till we have built Jerusalem_

_in England’s green and pleasant land_

Then they belted out another that threatened to choke the Sunnydale friends where they stood.

_If you stand before the pow'r of hell_

_and death is at your side,_

_know that I am with you, through it all_

_Be not afraid,_

_I go before you always,_

_Come follow Me,_

_and I shall give you rest._

These were Watcher family hymns sung by non-Watchers. Dawn had to sit down and Willow dipped to be with her.

The vicar made his entrance in a white smock and seemed to know most of the congregation personally as he’d smiled and pressed a lot of hands on his way to the pulpit. However, he didn’t seem to have known Giles terribly well, if at all. He called him Rupert a lot for one thing, presumably because that was how the family knew him, but it served to create a glass barrier between what was happening and Buffy’s grief. Then the vicar embarked on some amusing stories from Oxford and one or two absent minded moments from Rupert’s career at the British Library, but of course, nothing dark or sinister was mentioned. He even spoke lightly of Rupert’s emigrating to America and running a successful magic shop 'to the delight of the local school children'. Buffy already felt she shouldn't be there, but at that comment felt as if she was attending entirely the wrong funeral. The priest was on a roll though and there was even some giggling as he spoke of Rupert’s more recent time as a freelance researcher on his return from 'the Colonies'. Buffy gripped the hymnbook in her hands feeling like she could shatter it. This guy didn’t know Giles. This distant branch of his family didn't know Giles, her Giles, not like she did.

Suddenly everyone was standing again but not to sing. This time the pall bearers went forward to gather the casket. They hoisted it to their shoulders, Wesley and Xander among the group of six, and then walked down the centre aisle and out to the graveyard as the organ played and the congregation stood in respectful silence. It was a heavy box that held all that was left of Giles on this earth. She thought of him trapped in there, not wishing to be so contained and easily defined. Soon they would bury even that and he would become only a name on a piece of carved stone. Xander was on Buffy’s side of the aisle, staring grimly ahead. She knew he was focussing on his task, determined not to screw anything up for Giles’ sake.

And suddenly they were all outside in the pouring rain. The skies had darkened even further during the service, as though the sun hadn’t dared to show its face to her, and even the vicar left his jokes inside and proceeded to the solemn end of the business. Buffy held a large black umbrella over herself and Dawn and watched in disbelief that they were actually doing this thing. They were actually lowering Giles’ body to the ground and covering it with earth and she would never see him again. Her last funeral had been her mom’s. Giles had stood next to her that day when the sun had shone and Angel had been there for her as darkness fell. It hadn’t seemed any more real then, but at least she’d known her mother was at peace. Here, the vicar was trying to be sincere when he said Rupert was in Heaven now and at Rest, but she knew it was horribly untrue. That Buffy and her friends had no line on exactly where Giles was and could only imagine the hell he was suffering, was totally beyond the scale of what the man of God could possibly imagine.

The sky was so dark now that Angel could probably have attended, and the rain grew fiercer, cutting short any impulse the mourners had to linger. Giles’ so-called family sped to their cars with an air of ‘well that was that duty done’ about them. Umbrellas flapped and shook and engines started brightly. The ever efficient Mr Henman had booked the wake at the hotel they were all staying at. There would be food and an open bar and an opportunity for all his family and friends to reminisce and be at peace with his death. Buffy thought she’d choke on any buffet food offered her so she slipped to the archway of the church entrance and watched as her friends were shepherded into taxis and cars, and she was left on her own. The rain formed pools of muddy water into the cracks of the broken path back towards the graveside but she paid scant regard for her shoes.

Giles had been buried in the same village church he’d been baptised in which, according to one overheard comment, was another ‘nice thing’.  There were graves of members of his family going back two hundred years and a plaque to commemorate those that had been lost without trace in the recent London gas explosion. Buffy touched the brass plate. These were the secret Watchers that not even the bulk of the family knew about. These were the people she would have preferred to have met and consoled with.

The men who filled the grave cuts had not yet arrived, probably waiting for drier conditions and had left his casket still shamefully exposed. A green carpet of fake grass covered the mound of soil next to it. It would not take very long to fill and flatten the earth. Buffy could not bear to think of the short distance between herself and his dead body and the huge chasm between her soul and wherever his was.

She walked around the graveyard, reading the names and dates on weathered grave markers It wasn't real. The rain only served to emphasize the strange and rather gothic dressing of the older stones. The grass grew a little longer, the paths less well maintained, and the ivy had been allowed to thrive. Here and there she saw vestiges of the overblown Victorian flair for death: winsome statuary in ringlets and curls that had nevertheless crumbled and cracked under the onslaught of nature. Perhaps the stonemasons had cut them to look serene but now they looked sad and rather tortured as the ivy strangled their weather ruptured limbs down to the earth.

When she circled back she found she was no longer alone. Now intruding at Giles’ resting place was a blurry figure, twirling a very wide red umbrella over one shoulder. He wore a full length black wool coat and carried a leather messenger bag over his other shoulder. He slipped down to his haunches and ran a hand under the green plastic carpet for the freshly turned earth and pocketed some. Then he stood and paid such attention to the headstone as though it might have been the Rosetta stone itself. His features sharpened in her focus as she drew near into those of Ethan Rayne.

If Buffy had ever wanted to hit something, he couldn’t have presented himself at a better moment. She tore forward but he looked up suddenly and she saw the momentarily flicker of grief in his eyes before he could completely hide it. He and Giles had been friends once. He'd know him longer than any of them.  She marched up quickly and he stepped back a pace. As she closed in, certain only that she wanted to hit him, the anger in her died and she flung herself impulsively forward and into his arms. If he was surprised, he adapted quickly and hugged an arm around her, protecting both of them with the umbrella. The noise from the rain became phenomenally loud. It bounced and complained off the canvas, but she hung on to the strange reassurance of someone who, like herself, had a piece of Giles. Her cheek was on his chest and she allowed herself a few tears as the rain cascaded off the umbrella above them.

“I only came to steal the collection plate, but this is much better,” he murmured, causing her to remember something of her usual animosity. She disentangled herself, rubbed her eyes and folded her arms tightly to her body.

“Why didn’t you come to the service, Ethan?”

“I’m not terribly fond of being inside churches. Bad things tend to happen in places like that.” Buffy knew that vampires and demons avoided such places and wondered if perhaps Ethan had made one demonic deal too many. He had always played off both sides.

“So farewell, Ripper.” He actually smiled at the headstone as he chided, “Rather a plebeian way to check out, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“If you’ve just come to gloat…”

“Hardly, my dear.” He looked squarely at her, confronting her with his own stance. When Ethan took things seriously, he took them very seriously indeed. “I've come to ask what you are going to do about this mess.”

She narrowed her eyes at his challenge. “There’s nothing I can do,” she began hotly. “He’s gone and we don't even know where he has gone to.” A tone of helplessness crept into her voice. “There are hundreds of hell dimensions and we don’t know how to find him.”

“Ah,” he chuckled, his good humour returning in a flash. He patted the soft leather messenger bag with his elbow and said, “But I do.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

 

Ethan Rayne entered the Wentworth conference room with an overloaded plate from the buffet and balancing two full wine glasses. Before the door closed behind him, unbidden music breached the studious silence of the meeting space before swirling back to the hotel ballroom. The ever efficient Mr Henman had hired a jazz band for Giles’ wake and, at some point during the evening, the musicians had been encouraged to abandon stately and sombre in favour of lively and fun.

Away from Giles’ distant relatives, the mood of Giles’ friends was far more serious. A small working party had commandeered one of the hotel’s corporate meeting rooms but the flip charts and whiteboards had been pushed away and the state of the art projector hanging from the ceiling, ignored. Instead, Willow, Ms Peggy Harkness and Wesley had pushed four tables together to spread out the material Ethan had brought and sat painstakingly making notes and comparing his resources against their own document base.

Half the room worked and the other half waited. Xander was pouring coffee and distributing it round. Angel, excluded from the actual funeral service, sat on a table to one side with his arms folded. He regarded Ethan and his plate of food with a great deal of suspicion as the magician made himself comfortable next to Ms Harkness and read over her shoulder.

“Enjoying the fun?” Angel asked pointedly.

“It’s in full swing out there. I think the old folks will be starting a conga line soon. Maybe you should join them?”

Peggy Harkness looked up from her notes and asked, “Ethan, where exactly did you get this material?”

“Margaret, a gentleman never reveals his sources.”

“But you’re no gentleman.”

He placed a hand to his heart. “I’m touched you remember.”

Angel made a noise of disgust, which did at least make Dawn laugh. She had gathered her own plate of food earlier but was only picking at it. Dawn, though herself no slouch at research, recognised the heavy hitters they had been blessed with and had backed off respectfully to the buffet even though her appetite had deserted her.

Buffy sat on the wide windowsill at the far end of the room and watched the darkening skies now that the rain had stopped. She had never had a role in research and she knew it. Instead she watched the constellations take shape in the cloudless sky and marvelled at the beauty of a world that was always a hair’s width away from evil and torment. She had spent five days trying not to imagine where Giles might be, but now that Ethan appeared to bring some hope, her imagination had been licensed free rein and an open field to gallop in.

Xander, uncomfortable at siding with Angel on any matter, passed a cup of coffee to Wesley but addressed his own suspicions at Ethan. “Explain to me why we should trust you in this.”

Ethan drank from his wine glass very deliberately before answering, “Because Rupert is my friend.”

“You terrorised him,” Xander reminded him.

“Ah,” Ethan beamed angelically. “But in a friendly way. Harmless horseplay, really. Give and take. Technically he was the one that hospitalised me last.”

“Giles broke his jaw.” Willow added helpfully without looking up.

“Probably just to get him to shut up,” Angel said with some feeling. “You’re up to something. If you are trying to hurt him or Buffy somehow, then I’ll-.”

“Oh, don’t confuse your motives and actions with mine, Mr Vampire,” Ethan cut in with surprising iciness. “I know all about your quality time with our Rupert.”

Before anything could escalate, Ms Harkness tugged on Ethan’s sleeve and interjected, “That’s not helping, dear.” Ethan shrugged and selected something from his plate to eat very, very deliberately, enjoying Angel’s glare.

From her vantage point at the far window, Buffy could feel the tensions in the room, but she had also grown tired of the wait. She left her perch and approached the main table.

“Well?” she asked of the research team.

It was Wesley that put down a magnifying glass before answering her. “It looks to be genuine. It certainly confirms with what little we had already and does indeed give us a location. It appears these gods can manipulate their landscape to anything they please, create people and beasts and generally twist reality for their pleasure.”

Ms Harkness added, “Also, time moves at whatever pace the rulers wish it too.”

That sounded par for the course. Buffy herself had some experience of alternate dimensions when she had run away from Slaying, called herself Anne, and got an apartment and a waitressing job in LA. There, she’d spent her nights worrying about having sent Angel to hell, and yet circumstances contrived to force her to dive into another hell to rescue a girl she barely knew from slavery. Time had moved differently there and she was lucky to have not lost years of her life before she managed to return.

“So instead of five days, it could be five minutes or five years for Giles?”

“It’s a little more than that,” Ms Harkness explained. “These hell gods can actually warp time along with reality. Time is not constrained to follow a linear.”

Buffy must have looked as puzzled as he she felt because Willow dived in with a helpful translation.

“They can rewind too.”

Xander was on his feet and smiling. “Great, so it's a Tivo hell universe. Pause, rewind, fast forward? Any chance we could steal their remote control? Get Giles out of there while they are still looking down the back of the sofa for it?”

There was an awkward silence around the table.

“We can't bring him back, Xander,” Wesley said.

“But if we know where he is -”

“Rupert Giles is dead. On this earth, on this day, he is dead and there is nothing we can do about that.” Wesley may not have intended to intone quite so dramatically, but everyone felt it keenly like the final nail in his coffin.

Xander wasn’t prepared to accept it though. He pointed at Angel and looked imploringly at Willow. “He was dead, and he came back from a hell dimension.”

“That was because the First Evil brought him back. We don’t have that kind of power,” his friend explained.

“And the Acathla region didn’t have ruling gods to oppose such an intervention,” Wesley added.

Xander persisted, “We brought Buffy back.”

“Yes and you were incredibly lucky,” Wesley answered and started to gather together his research notes. “And as it gave the First Evil a chance to cross over to our realm, who knows if it didn’t even help in the process? Buffy passing back let it take up a presence to direct the bringers and almost end the world.” He tapped his papers on the table to give a smooth edge. “And again, I mention that in this case, we have ruling gods who would oppose any intervention on our part. They would seem to have every intention of keeping Rupert Giles as their…plaything…and they won’t give him up without a fight.”

“Then we give them one,” Xander responded defiantly.

Wesley rose to his feet to answer. “Are you even listening to me? Hello? Anyone there?”

Xander was pacing, hating to be beaten by an argument before they had even tried something.  “But there has to be something we can do,” he said.

“There is.” It was Buffy that spoke, and the room turned to her in surprise. She had said very little since arriving with Ethan but now she resonated with the authority of being the Slayer. “There is something I can do.”

Ms Harkness shook her head. “Buffy, I’m sorry, but there isn’t.”

Wesley gently agreed. “Buffy, even if we could find a way, there is the question of balance in the universes. We cannot allow the First another opportunity to cross again to the mortal animals.”

Even Willow looked at her in defeat. “Plus he was stabbed in a street robbery. It was a natural death so Osiris isn’t going to help or Tara would be here now.”

Buffy walked to the tables softly and looked at the scrolls and documents and then all the faces of her friends. She had only had one course of action in mind ever since she’d seen Giles on the sidewalk.  There was only one thing she could do.

“Buffy,” Wesley implored her softly. “We simply cannot risk getting the First Evil’s attention by attempting a resurrection that will fail.”

She smiled her understanding. “Don’t worry, Wes, I’m not about to resurrect Giles.”

“What then?”

“I’m going to join him there. Find me a way in, guys. I once told him I’d kick his sorry ass if he ever got himself killed. Guess this means I'm going to have to go and do that in person.”

“ _If you stand before the pow'r of hell and death is at your side, know that I am with you, through it all_.” Wesley quoted the hymn softly to the shocked room. It had resonated with them all during the service. “But I’m afraid you can’t,” he added. “Once there, you wouldn’t be able to come back either.”

Angel raised his head to ask, “She’d be dead?”

“No, but she’d be just as trapped there as he is.”

Willow re-opened one of the books doubtfully. “Buffy, if we found a way in it wouldn’t be a portal like a doorway that could be re-used. It would only be one-way and once only.”

This was something she had already anticipated but Angel was appalled at the implications.

“No,” he said. “You are not doing this. This only ends with you getting hurt. He will be very different from the man you remember. Time passes at different rate in these dimensions.  And he has hell gods determined to torture him and maybe have been for hundreds of years…there might not be enough of him for you to find. I’m sorry, but I think you should accept it’s a lost cause. He will be a broken man by now.”

“Oh no he won't be,” interrupted Ethan laconically. “You, of all people, should know Ripper is made of sterner stuff when it comes to being tortured.”

Angel looked uncomfortable but didn’t let Ethan distract him. He addressed Buffy directly, “And then what do you do when you get there?”

“Then I find these brothers of Glory’s and I make them give him up.”

“He’s dead though. You heard Wesley, on this earth, he is dead. He can’t come back.”

Ms Harkness intervened with a suggestion, “Of course, you might persuade them to let him pass on to another place.”

“Another place? You mean like Heaven?” Buffy was surprised at the idea.

Giles’ friend from the coven nodded. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but perhaps, yes.”

Buffy liked the sound of that. She was resolved, she would find a way to free him, even if it meant offering to take his place if necessary. She had experienced Heaven once, now he deserved a little piece of it.

Angel cut into her reverie. “What about Dawn?”

Buffy looked across at her sister for her answer.

Dawn positively shrugged. “You’ve always fixed things, Buffy. It’s what you do as the Slayer. I’d hate to think I’d never see you again, but somehow you always come back.” She grinned. “I mean, I never get to keep your stuff. So go, find Giles if you want to and figure out whether you two have whatness.”

Buffy smiled at her sister’s code.

“No. This is wrong,” Angel still insisted. “He wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want you throwing your life away like this.”

“Probably not. But it’s what he’s getting. Find me a way in, guys.”  
  
...

 

She left the conference room and walked through the wake, aware that Angel had followed her for Round Two of the argument. The party was indeed in full swing and Giles’ distant relatives were certainly making a fine night of it. A number of couples were waltzing to the band whose singer was by then crooning ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, for all he was worth. Some of the older people were singing along too:

_I'll be seeing you_

_In all the old familiar places_

_That this heart of mine embraces_

_All day and through_

_I'll find you in the morning sun_

_And when the night is new_

_I'll be looking at the moon_

_But I'll be seeing you_

Buffy wasn’t sure if Giles even liked jazz all that much. He’d have probably preferred to have booked The Who.

Angel brooded up to her as she stepped out in the freshness of the night air.

“Why?” he asked simply.

She walked into the gardens before giving him a reply, “You of all people know what it will be like for him.”

“And that’s all the more reason why I don’t want you to go there. You have your own life, and Dawn’s life to think about. You can’t throw that away just for Giles. We all feel for his situation. I know he was your Watcher, but this is madness.”

Buffy led them around to the parking lot. There was a crispness in the air and frost was starting to form on the windscreens.

“It’s more than about him being my Watcher,” she started carefully.

“Alright, more than a Watcher. He’s been like a father to you, I know.”

Buffy realised it was time to stop walking. “It’s more than that too,” she explained.

Angel looked at her intently, seeking out the truth in her eyes. “You can’t be serious. What does he think about you?”

That was a good question and one she could only answer truthfully. “I don’t think he understands his feelings for me.”

He gave a small grunt of frustration. “Sounds a real promising foundation to take a one-way journey to hell for.”

“I knew you'd understand,” she joked.

Angel kicked at a stone that bounced over an icy pothole. All the rain from earlier was starting to set as a hard, black glass. “He’s a lot older than you,” he muttered.

Buffy rolled her eyes at that one. “Is that really your best argument?”

He came closer to her, close enough to see the hurt she was causing him. “It’s different. I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you. He met you as a mature man with a duty to protect you because you were a child. He will always see you that way.”

She shook her head. “I have always been the Slayer to him. Never a child.”

“But if he loved you, it was as a daughter,” he argued. “You can’t be sure he’s changed his views.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve changed mine. Everything is different now. I’m different now: older, blonder, couple of times dead-er. You can’t stop me from doing this. You don’t have that sort of power over my heart anymore. Going after Giles and helping him is what I want to do.”

Buffy turned and started walking back to the lights and the music of the hotel but Angel recalled her with barely a whisper.

“You didn't come for me.”

It was an accusation that stung as only truth can. Buffy fought the guilt and the tears and returned to hug him, to soften the hurt he had expressed. She mumbled into his chest, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how then. I would have. Had there been a way, I would have.” She meant it with every fibre in her being, just as she knew that that was in the past and her feelings had taken a new direction. As the ice formed in the trees around them, they held each other like dark statues, in recognition of something important drifting away from them.

“Giles,” Angel finally said with grudging understanding, though he rolled his own eyes.

Buffy smiled at his reluctant acceptance of the situation. “He’s a good man,” she stressed.

“No-one will ever be good enough for you in my eyes. And if he hurts you, I’ll-”

“No. You’ll do nothing to him,” she cut off his declaration with a fond finger on his lips. “Not ever. You don’t have the right to interfere in my life anymore, Angel. You’re not my big brother or my dad.”

She put her arm through his in consolation as they walked back.

“Giles,” he exclaimed again in resignation.  
  
...

 

Willow was excitedly explaining things to Dawn when they returned to the Wentworth. “We can do it,” she said to Buffy. “We can send you there, but we can’t send you there alone.”

Ms Harkness took up the explanation. “You’re going to need someone else to anchor the magick as you make the journey. Otherwise you’d be ripped apart as nature fights to restore the balance between the dimensions.”

“Oh.” Buffy hadn’t thought about a travelling companion. It wasn’t the sort of mission she wanted to have company for.

Angel stuck out his chin. “Then that’s my job.  I can see you are going to do this damn silly thing with or without my blessing, but if anyone should be at your side, it should be me. I have some experience in these places after all.”

Buffy had a million objections but fortunately Ethan beat her to a response. “Oh yes, because if Rupert is in some relentless hell dimension, seeing the vampire that tortured him and killed his girlfriend is just bound to lift his spirits,” he said sarcastically.

“How much magic does this other person need?” asked Xander practically, but Buffy knew what was behind the question and she didn’t want him going with her either.

“I can’t ask you to give up everything, Xander.”

“And you’re not” Angel stated bullishly. “Because I’m going, and that’s final.”

“I’m sorry, Angel,” Willow said with all the authority her knowledge of magick gave her. “Even though Ethan is a snake in the grass, he does have a good point. I don’t think you’d be the right person to go.”

“I can’t ask you do this, Will. It wouldn't be right." Willow and Xander were her best friends, and Buffy wanted them to live more than she wanted their companionship. She had accepted that it was a one-way ticket for herself, but that didn’t mean she wanted to condemn her best friends to a dubious oblivion too.

Willow smiled at her. “I would do it for Giles without your asking, but I’m not the best person to go either.” She gestured to the chaos mage sitting to her right who was munching a sandwich. “I think you should take Ethan with you.”

“Him?”

“Me?” Ethan raised a hand to his heart in mock defence but Willow cut him off swiftly.

“You've gathered a hell of a lot of research into this place for someone who just came for the finger food.”

He put down his plate. “Yes, but I saw myself more as travel agent than personal tour guide.”

Wesley stood up and casually sat on the corner of the table next to Ethan.

“You've gone to a lot of trouble to bring this to us. You came here for our help. Of course.” Wesley smiled. “You already knew it needed a team to combine the spell to break through and that you would need a companion to help anchor you. You can’t do this on your own; otherwise you’d already be there.”

“I still think he’s lying to us about something,” Angel accused. “We shouldn’t trust him.”

Ethan beamed in defiance of the vampire. “You probably shouldn’t. But if it’s a straight choice between you or me… well, just this once. I’ll go.”

“Besides,” added Xander. “If anyone can find a way to slither home, it would be Ethan.”

“How touching.”

“This is no joke, Ethan,” Ms Harkness warned. “You both need to be careful when you go because it’s not at all clear what would happen if you were to die there. My best guess is that Glory’s brothers would own your soul completely too. “

“That’s alright then,” Ethan said cheerfully. “I never carry mine about with me.”  
  
...

 

“I’m afraid you have to wake up now.” Buffy’s head was rocked from side to side. “Are you still alive after all that?”

“Barely,” she groaned. Buffy woke feeling her entire body had been put through a power blender.  “I guess this means we’ve arrived.” Every part of her body ached, even her eyebrows. “You suck as a magick anchor, Rayne.” They had arrived rather uncomfortably among some overflowing dumpsters in a small commercial district back alley. She hadn’t known what to expect about their destination but landing in trash still came as a surprise, even if Ethan was involved.

Buffy looked around defensively in case anyone had witnessed their arrival but there were no signs or noise from the streets beyond. The only illumination came from a weak and grimy street light on the corner.

“I’ll be sure to take it off my résumé.” The sarcasm was Ethan’s but the voice was different. She looked across sharply to see a very different man was lying on the ground, stretching his limbs gingerly and removing garbage from his person with some disdain. He was younger than Ethan and with slightly longer hair and caught her uneasy stare with a wink.

“Ah, now I knew there was something I forgot to mention,” he added, completely confirming his identify in her mind.

“What the hell happened to us?” Buffy jumped to her feet and realised disconcertingly that she was taller than she was used to in flat shoes. She looked for a window to see her reflection. “What is this?”

“If you recall I said something about how it be necessary to adopt a disguise when we got here,” he replied smoothly.  She did indeed remember Ethan making some vague reference to that,  just after Willow had conducted the pre-flight checks.

“But I thought you meant a dark wig and shades. What is this? What did you do?”

“It’s vital that our true identities are not discovered.”

She looked at her reflection. Her face was older, late thirties perhaps, with a darker skin complexion and laughter lines around her eyes that her makeup did well to obscure. Her hair was distressingly grey at her ears and even her eyes were a different colour. It was not a face she recognised, but it did at least feel like it belonged to her.

“We can’t use our own names either,” Ethan continued. “Tell you what, I’ll be Adam and you can be Eve.”

Ethan, it seemed, could be annoyingly smug in any dimension. Buffy punched him in the ribs but was shocked to find it made very little impact on him, quite the opposite in fact, it was her fist that actually hurt.

“Damn,” she said. “Unless you are wearing body armour, I’m not as strong in this body. I’m not the Slayer here.”

“Ah.” Ethan looked comparatively worried even by his louche standards.  “I hadn’t actually accounted for that. That might be a bit of a problem.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Just what have you been accounting for? Are you sure we are even in the right place?”

“I’m sure. These hell gods can make their domain look like anything they please, so I’d say this setting is for Rupert’s benefit.” He looked around slightly nervously. “Though I brought you along because I thought I could count on you as the Slayer.” He looked up at the dark sky and the alley they had found themselves in. They were alone for now, but in the poor light, anything could sneak up on them. “So that’s disappointing.”

Buffy folded her arms to demand further explanation. “And here’s me thinking I brought you along. What else are you not telling me? You do have an escape plan, right?”

He smiled weakly. “Actually, no. I’m rather hoping something will present itself. In the meantime we should probably get out of here and mingle a bit. See if we can muster some intelligence about these hell god brothers and strike a deal.”

He began to walk and she followed, angry at his haven taken the lead.

“We should try to find Giles first,” she argued.

“No, that’s actually the last thing we need to do.”

“Why?” She stopped and gave him an angry head-tilted look. “I may not be able to punch you very effectively, but I’m sure I can find a trashcan lid to bludgeon you to death with if needs be.”

Ethan smiled patiently. “He cannot learn who we are, dear child. If we tell him or he figures it out, there is a real danger our outward appearance and bodies would collapse as the deception is broken and our foreign presence is this dimension is rejected.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we would cease to exist, here or anywhere else. And as ‘no more me’ is not something I wish to contemplate, we should actively avoid Rupert wherever possible.”

They left the alley with Buffy uneasy at the sudden way her rescue mission had been turned on its head. Nothing was how she had expected it to be. They were walking in a regular town with no obvious evil undertones except a complete absence of traffic and people.

Ethan seemed to be amused though. “So this would appear to be Rupert’s vision of Hell: small town Americana,” he mocked. “How quaint.”

Familiar landmarks suddenly appeared: buildings, street signs, fire hydrants and parks she knew. Buffy was puzzled to find herself in a facsimile of the town she grew up in.

“This is Sunnydale,” she said. “A slightly freakier version perhaps.” Buildings that had no business being next to each were suddenly near neighbours. “Slightly cramped maybe, but still Sunnydale. Did you know about this too?”

“No, I was expecting something far more Hieronymus Bosch. It’s disappointing really. Ripper has no imagination. Not a pitchfork in sight.”  
  
...

 

They walked on and although Buffy couldn’t quite remember how they got there, she found they were in the middle of one of Sunnydale’s cemeteries. Restfield, if she wasn’t mistaken. Giles’ favourite hunting location when he’d first taken her out on patrols. All the headstones and monuments were as familiar in outline to her as childhood. Ethan stopped to read an inscription – Jennifer Calendar. Buffy was pretty sure Ms Calendar had been buried in Stonevalley, but as she looked around at more of the grave markers, unease grew inside her. All the stones in Restfield now read Jennifer Calendar.

It was a disturbingly cruel blow to realise Giles’ vision of hell centred on his grief for another woman. He had loved Ms Calendar, and Angel, whilst soulless, had killed her and taunted Giles with her dead body. Buffy, having felt betrayed by Jenny, had failed in her duty to protect her and now she was being punished with the knowledge that Giles’ passion and grief surrounding the loss of his girlfriend was what fuelled his idea of purgatory.

A woman’s scream suddenly pierced the night. It was the first noise they had heard since they’d arrived and it came from the Du Lac Church, which should have been five miles away but had now obligingly hooved into view just across the street.

Buffy started to run while Ethan protested, “Oh must we charge quite so heedlessly into danger?”

She ignored him and raced up the stone steps to the East entrance. Ethan had followed reluctantly but pulled up sharply. “You don’t actually expect me to go inside? These places are terribly bad luck.”

“Oh I don’t know.” A new voice spoke to them from behind Ethan, recognisably the female who had screamed to get their attention. “They always work for me.”

The church door opened suddenly and Buffy was grabbed from behind. She didn’t have the same strength but she levered her attacker over her shoulder as best she could. Unfortunately he was quick to his feet and caught her with large hands. She struggled in his grip and looked for Ethan to help her.

“Buf-” he began but his words were cruelly choked in his throat.

As her burly vampire attacker held her, Buffy was forced to watch the whole horror play out before her like a slow motion replay. A woman’s hand snaked around Ethan’s neck from behind, then savagely pulled his hair to lower and twist his head. There was a rush of blonde hair as she’d jumped and plunged her fangs deep into his artery. He thrashed his elbows briefly, but she snapped his neck bone and his hands dropped lifelessly before Buffy could even think about moving. She could only stand pinned and in shock whilst Ethan’s body was being held up grotesquely and the female vampire continued to feed. Other vampires gathered from the shadows and stood gleefully in admiration of their leader’s kill.  Finally she let his dead body slump to one side and wiped her mouth the back of her wrist. To Buffy, it was horrible to see this vampire’s face, contorted in pleasure and blood. But then more horrifying still, the creature dropped her demonic appearance, and her features turned into a prefect replica of Buffy Summers.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

 

It was obscene. It was like the most grotesque mirror Buffy had ever looked at. Her vampire double wore heels and tight black leather pants with a red halter top. Her hair was shoulder length and actually looked good, but was this what Giles thought of her? The vampire stood with hands on hips, smirking at her obvious victory: she had power and she knew it. From around the church, six other vampires approached to encircle the party. The two largest joined her side, acting as an honour guard and deterring any challenges to her authority. She was smart enough to have gathered a group, and to keep herself at the centre whilst the others served, and smart enough to keep loyal bodyguards so those that served wouldn’t get ideas of power sharing.

“Oh I’m sorry. Did I just kill your boyfriend? Oops, my bad.”

Buffy heard growling behind her as three more vampires surrounded her. Ethan had been killed so instantly, the shock had barely registered. If he’d had a way home up his sleeve, it had died with him, and now she was trapped with no Slayer powers to fall back on.

A canister of smoke clattered on the stone of the church arch, and then bounced between them. It hissed a yellow gas and spun itself around as it did so. The vampire version of herself seemed singularly unimpressed to say, “Oh Rupert, is that the best you’ve got?” At which point a firebomb burst into view, hitting and immediately incinerating the vampire holding Buffy. Her hair was scorched with the sudden fireball but she had experience enough to know that when artillery starts arriving, it usually signals a good time to run.

The vampires ran too, but crossbolts dipped in petrol and set alight picked them off as they fled, causing more panic. Buffy hoped to god whoever was firing didn’t target her. Smoke was billowing from the church and into Restfield, and she lost sight of her evil twin, which was a plus, but then she tripped and fell and one of the nameless vampires quickly descended upon her. Kicking him savagely she squirmed free, but the pain only made him more determined. Buffy fought as best she could, using all her guile to thwart his clumsy attempts at capture.  Seizing her opportunity, Buffy drove a stake into his chest, but she lacked the strength to break through and reach the heart. He began to laugh, but as he did, Buffy was pushed forcefully from behind. The sudden impact drove her forwards and, though fearing her wrist might break first, she hung on to the stake as her momentum drove the wood deeper, and the vampire exploded to a familiar dust. Alas, in doing so, she became unbalanced and crashed to the ground, almost staking herself on the follow through. Her face exploded in pain as it made hard contact with a flattened grave marker and her nose filled with blood.

There was no time to worry about it though, because she was immediately pulled up rather violently by her jacket. Her arms were pulled back uncomfortably by the denim fabric, but she tried to swing a punch until she recognised the face of the man who had picked her up and spun her around. It was Giles. Giles who had pushed her forward with enough momentum to stake the vamp. Giles who was picking her up roughly. And unmistakably, Giles who looked about as fiercely determined as she’d ever seen him in her life. She could have kissed him.

In this hell dimension, his age and appearance hadn’t been distorted as hers was. He was wearing an expensive, fine-weave grey three piece suit, with a lemon shirt and a blue and yellow tie. She hadn’t seen him in a suit, much less a tie, in a long time, and she forgotten how good he could look when an effort was made. His grooming and wardrobe had deteriorated badly into nondescript jeans and tees and shapeless layers since he’d become a gentleman of travel, but now he was clean shaven and wearing the Harold Lloyd spectacles she remembered from when she’d first met him at Sunnydale High. He didn’t look like he was about to do bumbling comedy though, on the contrary, he looked incredibly resolute. She must have been staring because he grabbed her arm rather savagely and pulled her to run with him before the vampires had time to regroup.

They ran through the streets and smells of Sunnydale: the coffee shop, the Laundromat, past the town’s one and only cinema, and through the gates of Restfield cemetery. Giles pulled her arm and she stumbled along, surprised at how much it hurt and how slow she was running compared to him.

A vampire made to jump them from the side, but Giles parried him headfirst into a particularly pointy headstone and carried on. They burst onto the street past the High School, and then ran past Xander’s parents’ house, and then the coffee shop again. Those three places were in totally different parts of the real Sunnydale but here, obligingly, they rolled into a conveyer belt of familiar landmarks. They past the Laundromat again and the cinema again and then desperately broke through the gates where she found herself back in Restfield cemetery.

Giles hadn’t seemed to notice. Buffy’s lungs felt raw, and Giles hadn’t noticed they were being projected in circles. He was running like a mouse in a maze, only someone was moving the walls and forcing him to always return to the vampires. The very same vampire attacked again, but unlike Giles, he varied his approach and managed to crash into Buffy, wrenching her out of Giles’ grasp. She scrambled to her feet as a cloud of dust filled her eyes and Giles pulled back his stake.

“Come on,” he demanded, but Buffy had gotten over her initial shock and excitement at the rescue and defied him.

“No,” she insisted. “This way.” She knew he was locked into the grid, running in circles designed to bring him back to the centre point no matter what road he chose. Buffy couldn’t get much more than a small fist onto the sleeve of his jacket, but she pulled the fabric sufficiently to get him to follow her off the path and into the bushes. They cut through the shrubbery and she led the way down pathways and streets, diverting sharply at random directions whenever she saw a familiar landmark, choosing side roads, and gardens, forging her own route erratically until she didn’t recognise the streets and the alleys, and the houses and tight brownstone apartments became completely unknown.

Giles looked confused. They had reached a suburban area but there were no cars on the streets and the houses were dark and abandoned. Buffy chose one at random, climbed the steps and kicked the front door, but its solid wooden door mocked her efforts. Giles shook his head and went to the basement level where there was more shelter and set about picking the lock. It took him about the longest two minutes of Buffy’s life, but eventually he succeeded and they dived inside to await what followed; side by side with their backs pressed against the door, their hearts racing in unison.

Despite the locked door, their basement apartment appeared to have been abandoned. The only decoration was a wall mirror, there was no furniture or curtains, in fact the windows had been boarded up with planks hastily slatted and nailed into the frames. Additional smaller pieces of wood had been discarded as inadequate and piled in a corner.  Moonlight flowed in freely between the gaps in the windows and gave enough eerie blue light for them to see their reflections in the mirror. She was closer to him in height now, but it was still odd not having her own face looking back at her; the vampire wore that now, of course. As far as Giles knew, that thing at the church was the real Buffy to him.

It was very quiet in the street outside but Buffy knew the danger of trying the light switches and attracting attention so she remained still.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t in time for your boyfriend,” Giles whispered.

“Oh, he wasn’t. God, no.”  She really didn’t want him thinking that.  “He was …” She thought hard for a moment, struggling for the words to describe Ethan. In life she’d found him annoying, untrustworthy, dangerous even, but in death she found she couldn’t be petty about it. He had risked everything to make this journey for Giles’ sake after all.  “He was just … a friend.”

“I’m Giles. Rupert Giles.”

It was wonderfully reassuring and old-fashioned to hear him introduce himself. That he should wish to observe social formalities at such a time was so beautifully Giles-y of him. She desperately wanted to hug him.

“Hello Giles,” she answered, unable to hide her joy at the words.  She thought she’d lost him. Thought she’d never again be able to make that simple greeting. She wanted to preserve that sweet moment in time forever.

She was grinning at him like a lunatic until Giles coughed and prompted, “And you would be…?”

Ethan’s caution of having to remain a stranger to him returned to her. She took a deep breath.

“I’m Anne.”

“How do you do, Anne?” He gave a quick smile then cautiously moved to the boarded windows to peer out.

She wanted to respond ‘about a thousand percent better now that I’ve found you’, but was aware that in the circumstances, this would sound creepily stalkerish.

Her lack of big responses seemed to bother Giles because he turned back to her with some concern. “Are you alright? You took a bit of a knock back there.”

“Just a little shaken,” she admitted. Not being the Slayer took away a large part of her confidence in dealing with vampires. Her powers defined her so much that to the outside world that was all she was. When she’d experienced the loss before on her eighteenth birthday, she had struggled at first to find the strength within herself to cope. Giles had rescued her in his car and she had sat in the library, under a warm blanket and had felt safe under his protection. She’d wanted a father figure then. She’d wanted a man to make the monsters go away, but instead Giles had admitted his culpability and guilt and had sickened her with his betrayal. She’d had to find the part of her that wasn’t the Slayer, had to use that strength and intelligence and unexpected determination to win. She had learnt Giles wouldn’t play the heroic father figure for her that night. He hadn’t pretended it was someone’s doing, but instead accepted his responsibility and begged her forgiveness, not as a child but as an equal. She’d learnt that a lot of what made her a great slayer, what kept her alive, was about her, and nothing about ancient magicks and superpowers, and more importantly, she’d found she had the strength to forgive him.

Giles was back at her side and his fingers touched her forehead in concern. She had drifted in thought and he was checking for a fever. She flinched as he pressed her nose. “I don’t think that is broken, but I expect you’ll be looking through two black eyes tomorrow,” he said softly. His thumb brushed her cheekbone.  “You’re shaking. When was the last time you ate properly?” he asked.

Tears threatened to betray her as she realised it had been a week ago and in a Chinese restaurant.

He was standing very close to her, closer than she could remember him ever being and Buffy wondered why, apart from quick hugs at birthdays, they had always kept a distance. However, her thoughts were interrupted by mocking cries from outside.

“Rupert. Oh Ru-pert.”

Both Buffy and Giles sped to the window to peek out and see the vampire version of Buffy walking through the middle of their street very, very slowly.

“Ru-pert. Come out, come out wherever you are,” she sang.

Giles was all business-like suddenly and selected a stake sized lump of wood from the corner. “Lock the door behind when I’ve gone and don’t open it to anyone, not even me. You should be safe enough in here. If morning comes you’ll be able to get out of town,” he instructed.

“No, you can’t go out there now,” Buffy reasoned. “I won’t let you.” She fought with him, slapped him, wished for happier days and strength when she could punch him out cleanly. “Don’t leave me again.” He had his arms around her, and she stopped fighting and implored, “It’s crazy to try and fight her on her terms. Think this through, Giles.”

Her appeal to his rationality seemed to work and bought her just enough time to swing her back against the door to block him. Before he could act further, the virtue of her caution became clear when the vampire’s two chief henchman slowly crept into view. They had clearly been holding back as a trap while their leader tried to taunt Giles into breaking cover. As they swaggered, they scoped for signs of life in the apartment buildings to either side. Buffy and Giles stayed very still together until the three had walked further up the street.

Giles accepted the situation remarkably calmly by changing the subject. “Come on, we should get that nose of yours cleaned up.”

He moved to the kitchen and began to search the units for any supplies. Buffy followed, a little embarrassed for her looks after her face-first crash to a grave marker. She wiped dried blood off her top lip and felt the tenderness in the bruising. She realised she must look pretty ghastly, even if it wasn’t her usual face and nose. She wondered what Giles saw of the woman under the blood.

As if in answer, Giles pushed past her brusquely, and closed the kitchen door behind them, plunging them into momentary darkness before there was a strike of a match and he lit a meagre candle. It spluttered in protest and belched soot. Giles picked at the flame and wick with his fingers until it settled to provide a small yellow light between them. The faucet worked and he ran a handkerchief under it before handing it to Buffy and leaned back against a counter top, his hands stretched wide. The cold water stung as she dabbed gently and she hissed in places. All the while she was aware of Giles watching her by the warm glow of the candle as she worked. He couldn’t entirely hide the faint smile in his eyes though.

“Better?” she asked. He removed his glasses to his top pocket and nodded. “So what’s going on here,” she asked as casually as her heart rate allowed her.

“Ah.” He stiffened and folded his arms before continuing, “What is happening, is something that is entirely my fault.”

Buffy rinsed the handkerchief and returned it to him. “Why? What happened?”

“I know this is going to sound shocking and strange, but I’m afraid what you encountered before were vampires.”

She blinked a couple of times, unsure how to pitch her response. “Vampires?”

“Vampires and demons are real I’m afraid,” he said earnestly.

For a fleeting moment, she really wanted him to do the whole ‘since the beginning of time’ talk as he’d explained it to Xander and Willow in the library about a thousand years ago. But he’d stopped already, trying to gauge her reaction, waiting to see,  rather sweetly, if the shock was too much for her. It should have been funny, but she could hardly risk him discovering her true identity, so instead of laughing, she nodded solemnly.

“OK, so vampires are real. I get that, but why do they seem to have a personal beef with you?” He flinched at her insight so she quickly added, “I couldn’t help but notice the way she said your name.”

The effect was immediate. “We should check where they are,” he said gruffly. Pinching out the candle, Giles moved them back to what had been the main living area and began pacing by the windows. Buffy followed, well aware she was intruding where a stranger shouldn’t, but determined that she of all people, needed to know the truth.

“Tell me why it is personal,” she demanded. “You’re not going out again until I get the full story.”

He looked angrily at her at first before relenting with the air of a man who knows he is henpecked on all sides. Surprisingly, he braced himself against a wall and slid down to sit on the floor. Putting his glasses on, he looked to the ceiling as if debating with the cracked paintwork how much to tell her, then leant forward, took off his glasses off again, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“It’s personal because it’s my fault she was turned, that is, became a vampire,” he added with a charming, but wholly unnecessary explanation of the terminology.

Buffy knelt next to him. “What happened?”

“I was supposed to look after her. To protect her. And I failed.”

It was clearly painful for him to explain but Buffy had to know. She spun around to put her back to the wall and leant a little against his shoulder, asking gently, “How did it happen?”

“She had a boyfriend named Angel - somewhat ironically named as it turned out - and he killed her and made a vampire.”

Buffy studied her shoes. In Giles’ nightmares, that probably would be the way it would happen. He’d always swallowed his apprehension whenever he’d seen the two of them together. On the night of his death, his swift exit from her apartment at finding Angel there had nothing to do with the curse, and everything to do with his greatest fear.

Buffy didn’t relish encountering Angelus without her Slayer powers but if Giles could, she could.

“Where is he now?”

“He’s dead, she just… killed him,” he said bleakly.

Buffy was a little shocked at that. “Just killed him?” she clarified.

“I believe she said ‘thank you’ as she did it. I wasn’t there. I might have been there.” He played with his watch strap to cover his confusion. “Sorry, I’m a little tired and the details get hazy, but she staked him through the heart and said ‘thank you’, and that ‘being a vampire was what she’d always wanted to be’.”

Buffy huffed. “I seriously doubt that. The demon part of her is just messing with you.”

“Maybe. Anyway, since then she has taken over the town and all the other demons are terrified of her. All the people, the humans that is, have all run away.”

Her fingers trailed over his hand as she asked, “So why do you stay?”

His eyes grew flinty for a moment. “Because I have to kill the bitch.”

 

...

 

“Because I have to kill the bitch.”

Rupert Giles knew it was his duty and his calling speaking, but if he hardened his heart and focussed his anger, he could hear his own voice too. All he could generally think about was what had happened to her, how he should have stopped it sooner, and how he was inadequate at not being able to end it now. And yet here was somebody else in his life, and after weeks or months (he wasn’t sure quite which) of isolation, there was another rather remarkable woman who made him feel so much better.

The woman called Anne.

It was a welcome lift to finally have an ally after what had been such a long fight, someone to talk to. But it was more than mere companionship. She had been amazingly calm after stumbling into the horrors of his world, watching her friend die, and facing her own death, and he found that extremely comforting. Giles had felt like the only sane one in the asylum for too long and here was someone new who wasn’t blaming him for the mess he’d made. When he looked back at a lifetime of faults and bad decisions, he’d always had a tendency to panic and mess things up further, and it had often needed the calmness of the women in his life to make him see sense. His mother, his grandmother, Buf-. No it hurt to think of what she had been. He needed to keep his anger, feed his hatred, or he would be lost to panic again.

And yet here, suddenly, was another strong woman for him. Anne. She was warm and had beautiful eyes that were forever seeking his. He felt as though he’d been shipwrecked and had been fighting for his life in monstrous waves forever, and she was like some beautiful piece of wreckage that had floated up to him, something he could cling too and keep safe, offering a small hope of salvation till the storm ended, like a half remembered destiny.

Except the storm never ended and morning never came for some reason. That was a distant puzzle at the back of his brain and he was always too tired to think about it. He knew he was responsible for the storm somehow, and he knew he had the means to end it, but it was confusing and made no sense.

When he pulled himself back from his dark place, he found Anne’s eyes searching his face for what he was thinking. She seemed concerned for him, had taken his hand as if it were second nature and she was breathing only lightly and was oh so very close to him. He told himself he couldn’t afford to rest, that he couldn’t be that selfish, that this woman was in danger as long as she cared for him.

“I think their patrols have passed so you’ll be safe here tonight. I should really go.”

He stood to make for the door, but she was surprisingly faster and blocked his path.

“You can’t go out there now. You’ll get yourself killed. Wait until daylight,” she entreated, grabbing his arm.

He didn’t think there would be daylight. For some reason, he dimly knew there was never daylight. Night was the time of vampires, when the demons had their fun.

“You’re exhausted and there is no need to put yourself at risk. We are both safe here for tonight.”

“Buf-” he stopped himself from saying the name. “She is my responsibility.”

“And you’re mine,” Anne reasoned. It was such an absurd thing for her to have said, and he laughed for the first time in a long time, but she had meant it sincerely. “Seriously, you saved my life that means I have to look out for you.”

“You don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“I understand she wants to get you at a disadvantage, that the trap at the Church was meant for you not me. She’s pushing your buttons to hurt you, and you need to find a way to not let her.”

Her words were rational and logical. He admired how she seemed able to be calm at what would have been a horror movie to most people. She had a spirit that attracted him, an intelligence and inner beauty he wanted to fight for.

Anne drew closer to him and he felt the temptation to yield and lose himself keenly.

“Stay with me till morning,” she pleaded, her eyes flashing in the moonlight.

Giles swallowed and told himself he couldn’t risk losing this precious woman, as he surely would if he didn't go outside and tackle Buf- the bitch. He bent to kiss the top of Anne’s head as a farewell gesture, but she looked up at him with a face of trust and the promise of fire, and he forgot himself and his hands were in her hair and his lips were upon hers.

She responded with fire and passion of her own, snaking out of her denim jacket before chasing her hands to his shoulders, his biceps, his waist. Giles kicked off his shoes. The loss of height brought them nearer, intensified the moment. He broke free of her hands and slipped off his jacket with a thud to the floor, then he pulled and twisted at the buttons awkwardly on his waistcoat as Anne gently pulled at the soft sleeves of her blouse, and all the while they kissed. More clothing followed and they made it to the floor themselves with increased urgency until Giles broke contact with her lips.

“You do realise,” he mumbled. “That I can’t offer you much of a future.”

“That’s ok, we’ve never had much of a future.”

“Yes but-”

“Shh, Giles. No talking. Not now.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

 

“I’m afraid you have to wake up now.”

Buffy woke in a moment of panic at the words she felt she’d heard before. She found herself on the floor, under the makeshift blankets of their clothing from the night before, but calmed when she realised she was still, most importantly, wrapped in quite a bit of Giles. She stroked the small hairs on the back of his wrist and kept her eyes tightly shut.

“Oh, but this is such a good dream,” she teased.

Giles gently pulled his arm from under her neck. “It can’t last for ever, Anne.”

Oh, Anne, of course, Anne. He still didn’t know who she really was. In her happier dream, she hadn’t been keeping such big secrets from him, but then of course, Giles would have treated her very differently had he known, and she would not now be enjoying the contact of his skin. The great irony being that he carried too much history of their relationship in his heart to have ever been anything but a perfect gentleman towards her, so perhaps there was something to be said for the novelty of being strangers after all.

Giles kissed her forehead quickly, then sat up and began to untangle their clothes. He dressed rapidly, buttoning his lemon coloured shirt and stepping into his suit pants at a noticeable speed. Watching as he tied his tie and shoelaces and slipped his arms into his vest, Buffy grabbed his jacket and pulled it around her own shoulders, and was rewarded with a wry smile before it flashed from his face and he went to the window to cautiously peak outside. Daylight striped in through the wooden barricades and fanned out across the room, warming the bare maple floorboards and disturbing dust particles into a frenzy of activity. Giles stood transfixed in awe at the morning sky.

Fearful of the distance he’d put between them, Buffy went to stand as close to his side as she dared, without actually making contact. She was grateful to have woken up with him, too many of her first times had concluded with the rejection of an empty bed the following morning, but Giles, she sensed, had been awake for some time before he’d disturbed her. It was clear to her now that he was restless and wanted to be on the move again, but it was sweet that his gallantry had allowed her to sleep for as long as she had. As he stood looking in bewilderment at the day, she hoped to god he wasn’t regretting the night before.

“Is everything OK?” she asked.

“You made the sun come up,” he said, his voice both gentle and thoughtful. “It’s beautiful. I can’t remember the last time I saw it.” He unselfconsciously reached an arm around her and she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I really do think you did that for me.”

She wondered how long he’d been living like this, without the sun, without hope or help from another human being. He’d certainly needed contact the night before, acting from an instinct to escape the loneliness, and Buffy had responded with a need of her own, and everything had been simple and blissful. Now, in the golden rays of a new day, Buffy wondered whether he understood where he was, what was happening to him and why the world kept changing irrationally to hurt him. On the evidence so far, probably not, but she had broken him out of the destructive pattern once, perhaps it was time to try again.

“So,” she began cautiously. “Am I right in thinking vampires can’t hunt us in daylight? If so, that means we can use this time to get away from this place without them following us.”

Giles tensed. “I have to find her.”

Buffy reached for his shirt buttons and gripped tightly. “You can’t. There are too many of them. It would be suicide,” she said.

He put his hand on hers. “I can’t leave her like that. I have a duty to stop this thing from spreading. She is building an empire. If I stop it now the other vampires will be lost without their leader and will crawl back to the sewers.”

That was what he thought was the only reality of his life. It wasn’t some game or test, or dream hell dimension. He thought he had to stop the evil from spreading and she realised sadly that that was a probably a cycle of reality that he could never break himself free from, not even in his life before this damnation. She may not be the Slayer in this reality, but Giles was still a Watcher.

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I’m not in favour of it myself.”

“I think you are,” she shot back. “I think she’s an obsession with you. An itch you can’t scratch.” Her words tumbled with more rancour than she intended because to lose him to a demonic copy of herself seemed preposterously unfair. Hers was a unique jealousy, but it still sucked. “Giles, this thing with…that vampire…This is something you can walk away from…with me.”

He stood resolute, not giving her an answer.

“Not even for me?” she pleaded.

“Almost.”

His features melted, and his words, spoken so softly, took her by surprise. He didn’t know her, hadn’t recognised her, and she certainly couldn’t have expected to have made that much of an impression on him, but his single word both raised and dashed her hopes simultaneously. She wanted him to notice her, wanted the night they’d just spent together to mean something to him so very much. ‘Almost’ was close, but agonisingly, not quite enough.

He spoke softly again, “But I have work to do.”

Buffy nodded in recognition of his pig-headedness and matched it with her own.

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not.” His resolute glare softened with concern. “I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

“Tough. I’m still coming with you.”

Giles smiled with a shy sadness and brushed her hair away from her face with his fingers.

“You are a remarkable woman, Anne. I could fall in love with you if this were any other time and any other place.”

“And I could love you, Giles,” Buffy replied from her heart, before she added, “Though you’d have to be a lot less serious about your job.”

His eyes wrinkled playfully at her humour and he kissed her softly, leaving regret on her lips. He slipped his jacket from her shoulders and pushed his own arms though. Buffy sighed and fastened the buttons on his vest for him then quickly dressed herself. She picked up a suitable looking stake and slipped it in her denim jacket. “Let’s do this then, though I don’t suppose you know where her nest is?”

“Yes, I do actually.” He pointed to across the street. Buffy’s eyes widened at the sudden appearance of Sunnydale High School, manifesting itself ominously in the quaint suburban neighbourhood refuge they’d found. She also marvelled at Giles’ complete acceptance of the whacked out geography they were living in.

As they stepped out onto the street, Giles said hopefully, “With luck they won’t be expecting us and we will catch them off-guard.”

“Yeah,” said Buffy as she pulled the front door closed behind her. She had a very bad feeling about the swiftness with which the school had appeared, but she didn’t want to dampen his spirits. “Sure we will.”

...

 

They walked through the deserted corridors of her old high school cautiously, but by this time, Buffy had experienced enough of this Tivo hell world to have a pretty good idea where the final scene was going to play out.  All the sights and smells were there. It was a stunning recreation of all the little details of the place and served as an aching reminder of a younger time in her life, when Giles was her Watcher, and somehow he, Willow and Xander didn’t get killed every week the way other people who had shared her secret did. Somehow they were the four who survived and defied prophecy time and time again. It had taken her a long time to realise that it wasn’t down to just her. She may have been the Slayer, but she wasn’t single-handedly keeping them alive. They worked as a team and looked out for each other, but equally importantly, none of them wanted to die.

She and Giles pushed through the double doors to the library because, even to Buffy, there was no other place than there for the final showdown.

The vampires had emptied a lot of the stacks and piled the books against the windows to keep the daylight out. Perhaps they were just as surprised at the appearance of the sun as Giles had been. Their hasty work had certainly made the place look very gloomy. The Buffy vampire sat on the main table, swinging her legs childishly.

“Oh look. The librarian has come. Were we making too much noise? Have you come to punish us?”

Giles stood menacingly still. “I’ve come to put an end to this.”

The vampire bristled with pleasure and then gestured towards Buffy. “And you’ve brought lunch for us all, how thoughtful.”

“No-one touches Anne.” Giles was angry and determined and yet outwardly very calm. He was bottling up a good deal of rage and hate. Buffy knew the signs. When he was too calm, it was a message to retreat to a safe distance, but the vampire dismissed the warning and smiled maliciously. She understood him too, of course, she knew his weakness as well as his strengths.

“Did you tie your white horse up outside?” the creature taunted.

Giles replied with ice, “You always did tend to talk too much.” And Buffy felt just a tiny pang as that hit home to her, but the vampire laughed it off. She swung off her table and began a slow teasing walk to square up to him. Giles calmly took his jacket off and handed it to Buffy, and then he passed her his glasses and rolled up his sleeves. As he did so, he didn’t look at her once, all his attention was on the vampire image of his Slayer.

The two favourite matching minions moved swiftly to the real Buffy’s side and took her arms.  Giles glared at the intrusion but the vampire giggled.

“Oh we're going to make her a prize to shoot for. But no snacking boys, not until after I teach the Watcher a lesson.”

“Leave her out of this,” Giles said coldly. “This is between you and me.”

His opponent happily agreed, “Always has been.” She watched him drop to a fighting crouch and purred with happiness, “Let’s see what you got then, Gilesy.”

...

 

Could Rupert Giles defeat a Slayer?

After all, Buffy used to hand his ass to him royally in the library. At the beginning, when he was still stuffed with the importance of his role, they would train and Buffy enjoyed knocking him over, embarrassing him, showing off that she could do more without even trying. She hadn’t thought that there was anything he could teach her, and she grew in confidence, perhaps arrogance, at that fact. He’d adapted of course. Looking back, perhaps he’d learnt more from those early lessons than she had. He had varied his teaching program, had gone out on patrol with her and yet and not lifted a finger to help her actually fight the vampires, only suggesting improvements afterwards. Watching him calmly sip from a thermos flask while she had battled for her life was infuriating at first, but then had become strangely empowering in itself. The vamps would have killed him brutally had she failed, but he had been indifferent to the risk because he had every confidence in her abilities. She wondered how much had been real confidence and how much of it had been an act for her benefit. He had certainly looked incredibly bored a lot of the time. But then again, he had a deceptive strength in combat. On the few occasions when he’d scored any points in training against her, it had been due to feints and tricks that used to irritate the hell out of her.

So, Buffy knew he was a better fighter in actual combat than when sparring. With sufficient motivation and the heat of battle, she’d seen him give a good account of himself when it mattered, so maybe it had been unfair to judge him against the Slayer standard. After all, Riley had been pumped up as a Super Soldier and he couldn’t beat her either. Of course, Riley always thought that with practice, one day he could, whereas Giles always knew he would be licked and didn’t have a problem with it.

Flanked by the two vampire bodyguards, Buffy could only watch the current brutal exchanges in the library. Could Rupert Giles defeat a Slayer? On the evidence of the fight so far, the answer seemed to be a resounding no. Giles was losing quite badly and the vampire abomination was mocking him for it. She'd knocked him down more than once, waited for him to get to his feet again, teased him with hope before kicking his legs away or grabbing his jacket lapels and sliding him across the big table into the stacks.  Vampire Buffy Was giving a swaggering performance, hands on hips, wagging a finger in disapproval, and it was all for his benefit. Everything she did was designed to humiliate him, and the real Buffy felt more than a little sick just watching it.

He launched another clumsy attack, determined to fight on when others would have laid down to die. It was a heroic gesture, but still destined to fail. Giles couldn’t beat the Slayer, he couldn’t kill this particular vampire, and it seemed hopeless for him to even try. His opponent effortlessly smashed him into a wooden chair that shattered upon his impact. He clutched at a piece of the wood for a weapon, but the vampire only laughed and kicked it out of his hand before striking a blow to the side of his head to knock him back down to the floor.

Buffy watched with growing tears as the vampire skipped to the book cage where the more serious weapons were kept. Giles picked himself up onto all fours. He was breathing hard and took a moment to rest his forehead on the cold floor as his chest heaved to recover his heart-rate. He’d been cut above his right eye and the swelling was beginning to shut the eyelid.

The vampire took her time assessing the weapons. She ran her fingers seductively over axes and knives before she settled on a short, nasty looking, hunting knife.

“Let’s make this more fun shall we?” she taunted. Buffy tried to move instinctively forward but a heavy hand griped her collarbone almost to breaking point. “Oh, look the new girlfriend wants to come to your rescue. How sweet,” the vampire taunted as she ran the blade of the hunting knife teasingly across her palm. “There will be plenty of time for you later.”

Surprisingly, she then tossed the weapon towards Giles where it clattered to the floor in front of him, inviting him to pick it up. Very slowly, and full of suspicion, Giles retrieved it and dragged himself upright.

“There, now. I suppose you could try throwing it at me, but I think we both know that wouldn’t work.”

Buffy remembered her training sessions with Giles. Parrying throwing knives was commonplace. It was true he'd never actually tried to kill her, but she didn’t fancy his odds with only one blade.

The vampire had already reasoned that. “You’re going to have to get real close and stick that in me. Think you can do that, Mr Giles?” she asked provocatively.

Giles grunted an assent, but Buffy wasn’t so sure. He was tired, injured and making too many mistakes. He was holding the knife all wrong for a start, clutching it to strike downwards at her, when the smart move would have been to jab upwards rather than risk missing so easily and getting blindsided on the downswing.

He made his move and Buffy cursed his stupidity. The vampire ducked his clumsy challenge, grabbed a pinch hold on his arm, and bent the joint back before taking the vicious knife from his fingers effortlessly.

“Not this time, Rupert,” she chided, and then to Buffy’s horror, she stuck the knife savagely deep into Giles’ chest and twisted.

As blood began to pour everything suddenly stopped as in in freeze frame. The Buffy vampire stood static, wearing a sickly grin of triumph. Giles hung improbably suspended slightly off his feet, a knife in his belly, his face twisted with pain, but trying to not give the vampire the satisfaction of showing it. All the onlookers, the vamps and demons, had their hands in the air, applauding and cheering as if locked in a photograph.

Buffy looked around their frozen faces and behind her. The two rather burly vampires guarding her had not stopped like the others. Instead they morphed out of their vampire faces and shrunk down and out of the dark street clothes and, bizarrely, into expensive looking cream suits with white shirts and black ties. They still looked like twins, but were more human, around thirty years in age, and with flaming red hair.

The one to her left spoke, “Sorry to interrupt at such a tense moment but we’ve been meaning to ask for some time … just who the hell are you?”

Buffy looked at their grinning ‘oh so pleased with themselves’ faces. There was clearly a family resemblance in their smugness.

“You’re Glory’s brothers, the ones that cursed Giles. The ones doing all this to him now,” she stated coolly.

The first brother spoke again in amusement. “In large part he’s doing it to himself, but you haven’t answered my question.”

Buffy eyed the static tableaux of Giles and the vampire version of herself and decided against full disclosure. “I’m a friend. I only came here to petition you, to ask you to let him go.”

“Go? You mean as in ascend Elsewhere?” He pointed upwards in mock reverence. “But we’re all having so much fun right now. It would be a shame to break up the party too early.”

Buffy bit her lip. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

“And our sister didn’t deserve to die at the hands of a mere mortal,” the other brother cut in. “The penalty was very clear. No contentment in his life, and then, we get to play our games with him.”

“So this is all just a game to you?”

“We aren’t the ones that pick the game. This one seems to be a particular favourite of his.”

Buffy didn’t understand. “You mean he chooses?”

“His subconscious chooses,” he clarified. “It’s very funny that you’ve come here, demanding we let him go, because he doesn’t want to go anywhere.”

“He can’t want all of this,” she said.

The first brother regarded the statues in combat. “He must hate her a great deal,” he mused. “I gather Slayers can be quite cruel to the Watchers.”

Buffy gritted her teeth. “Can he choose to end it?” she asked.

“Oh no,” they both laughed. “Nothing as easy as that. But he has it within in his means to end it. He just never does, that’s all.”

She frowned. “Because he keeps coming back here? To this?” Her brain worked the puzzle. “He has to kill her? In order to leave, he has to kill her? That’s hardly fair. She’s a Slayer and a vampire. You can’t expect him to beat her in a fair fight.”

“We don’t,” the second brother scoffed. “He’s the one that wants to keep trying. I happen to think this is very fair. He killed our sister after all. We have family honour to consider.”

They turned back to the fight and Buffy watched in surprise as the final fight scene reversed itself slowly, reverting to a point where Giles still had the hunting knife in his hand.

The fight resumed only this time in agonising slow motion. Instead of waiting for his doomed attempt to stab her, the vampire went on the attack to humiliate him as much as possible. Giles was too tired to anticipate all the vampire’s moves, and though he blocked as many as he could, she was quicker and blessed with demon stamina. He fell to the floor and left a trailing leg. Buffy winced as his opponent stomped on his ankle and he dropped the knife again.

She shouted, “Your sister was as nutty as a fruit cake, you should be happy that she’s gone and can’t come back here to kick your asses.”

The fight stopped abruptly and the brothers turned to her in anger.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Buffy continued. “You kicked her out of your dimension, sister or no. You didn’t want her around. Now I respect you’ve had your honour to maintain, but enough is enough. You’ve had your fun with him. Roll everything back again, and give me a chance to talk to him, let me help him somehow.”

The brothers exchanged looks and smirked before replying.

“Very well. We enjoy a good sporting challenge, so you will get your one chance to make a difference. But when this ends, you end. Our games with him can be played many more times, but this is your only roll of the dice. We suggest you make it a good one.”

The scene suddenly reversed quickly and stopped at the moment the vampire version of herself was in the book cage and Giles was on all fours, fighting for breath. Buffy seized her moment and ran to his side.

“Giles, you have to kill her.”

“Why, yes, thank you, Anne. I had figured that part out for myself,” he snipped before groaning in pain and adding, “But it’s a lot easier said than done.”

“You should have knocked down at the very start when she was bragging to the suck-up crowd,” Buffy pointed out. He’d actually had a slim opportunity at the beginning of the fight and he hadn’t taken it. At the time she’d thought he was looking for a tactical advantage and had passed up the obvious strike.

Giles shook his head and started to his feet again. “I was too slow. I’m too old for her, too old to fight her.”

“No, you’re not.” Buffy had a hand around his waist to steady him. His words were absurd to her. If she had learnt one thing from Giles it was that all opponents should be respected, no-one was too old or slow looking to not be a threat. And Giles could be as dangerous as they came when he wanted to be. He’d killed Ben when he’d thought it necessary to do so. They wouldn’t be in this whole mess had he not shown he could be a killer when he needed to be.

And the penny dropped. Buffy understood something that probably she was the only person in the world who could understand. Because she’d sparred and fought with Giles more than anyone else in the world. She alone knew the difference between Giles going for a kill, and Giles making it look really, really good.

“You sonofabitch, how dare you!” In her anger she pushed him away from her, causing Giles to look confused and a little hurt. “I am so incredibly disappointed in you.”

“Maybe he likes it rough?” chipped in the Buffy vampire. She had exited the cage with the same hunting knife, but had stopped to watch the fun.

Buffy raised a finger to her. “Excuse me, but this is my turn, so back off, bitch.”

“Are you going to let her speak to me like that?” came the pouty reply. Buffy ignored her, grabbed Giles by the sleeve and pulled him away from the teasing vampire.

“Why are you not trying?” she hissed. “Why are we even here if you don’t want to kill her? You should hate her like that, hate what has become of your Buffy. Look at me.” She grabbed his face in her hands. “Tell me why?”

“Because then I won’t see her face again,” he said quietly.

He knew. Buffy looked deep into his eyes and she was convinced that on primitive level, he knew what was happening. That’s why the brothers said he always seemed to want to play this game. He knew she would always kill him, but that he’d get another chance. He didn’t hate her at all, he just wanted to keep seeing her. It was beautiful and more than a little dumb.

Buffy stroked the back of his neck and dabbed away some of the blood on his face with her sleeve.

“You will see her again, some day, I promise you, but someplace other than this.” She retrieved the small stake from her pocket and gave it to him. “But you have to end this. She wouldn’t want to live like this. Your Buffy, Giles. Don’t let her down.”

He looked at her so intensely, Buffy felt he was boring into her soul and then he shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly before turning back to the vampire and suddenly launching a charge at frightening speed. Buffy noticed the vampire was quick to see the stake in his left hand, but he surprised the both of them by punching the creature with his right instead. She tottered backwards in her heels and he closed in with the stake, but she was still the Slayer and graced with more speed. Her actions were swift and calculated and with a turn of her hips, she once again plunged the hunting knife into his gut, twisted it in triumph, and watched him smash helplessly to the polished wooden floor.

Buffy gasped at the defeat. The vampire licked the blood from the knife and stepped over Giles inert body to face Buffy.

“What did you expect? He doesn’t know you, you’re nothing to him. It’s me he wants. I’m the one he loves. He wants me to take him, to make him suffer. He can’t get enough of my boot on his neck. And we have eternity to play games together.” She gripped the knife upwards as a professional killer. “And now this is where you get off.”

“You’re wrong,” Buffy said hotly. “He’s not like that, he’s-.” But her speech of defiance was cut short when the vampire version of herself exploded in a shower of dust. Behind her, Giles had dragged himself to his knees, clutching the stake Buffy had given him earlier.

It was his final act, to protect the woman he knew only as Anne.

“I’m really sorry,” he said before the life drained from his eyes and he collapsed sideways on the library floor.

“Giles! No, Giles,” she screamed but she was blocked from reaching him by strong arms across her waist. Then she felt a hand across her own neck, a snap, and the world went black.

...

“I’m afraid you have to wake up now.”  
  


 


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

 

“I’m afraid you have to wake up now.”

Angel’s voice was soft and reassuring but it nevertheless cut through her like a knife. She sprang to full consciousness and found herself back at the hospital, back in the waiting room they allocated to the relatives they gave bad news to, back at the time when Giles was…No. It wasn’t possible. No. It had been too vivid, too real to just be a dream.

“I think there’s news,” Angel continued and gestured to a stern looking Robin Wood walking purposefully down the corridor towards them.

Buffy ran to the window where the familiar lights and traffic of New York greeted her. There were car lights and night stars. Not a dream. No, she told herself. Robin’s sneakers squeaked closer but she found shecouldn’t bear to hear what he had to say.

“No. I can’t do this again.” She brushed off Angel, bundled past Robin, and ran back into the ER. A nurse tried to stop her telling her it was a restricted area but she ignored him and crashed through the double doors to get to the treatment areas. Buffy felt she couldn’t trust her senses until she saw Giles.  The first area was empty so she continued through another set of connecting doors where medical staff were treating a young woman.

One of the doctors casually said, “Somebody call security” without even looking up but Buffy was in no mood to be stopped. She ran to a general staging area, where the trolley beds were curtained off to provide some dignity for the patients. She pulled at each of the blue curtains In turn, ignoring the cries and shouts of protest. It wouldn’t be real until she saw him. A security guard grabbed her from behind but she threw off his textbook challenge easily. She ripped at another curtain that shrieked across its rail in protest, and there he was - Giles – standing upright in just his boxers, caught in the act of trying to climb into his pants and very, very much alive.

He swallowed hard and sprang a fetching crimson. “Bloody hell, what's the matter?”

Buffy stared incredulously at the neat white surgical dressing on his lower chest that appeared to be the sum total of his entire ordeal, then she looked for his face with a desperate plea to see if he remembered anything. His eyes gave a brief flicker of happiness but then darkened as if a veil had been drawn across his mind. The security guard caught up with her again and laid a hand on her shoulder, but this time she didn’t resist. What would be the point? Giles’ reaction at seeing her was not tangibly different from the previous day and it was almost too much to bear. He was alive, but dammit, still cursed, nothing had changed.

It was not, however, the security guard behind her, but Angel.

“Hi, Giles, how y’doing?” he asked, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice as he said it. Giles glared at the pair of them as if he wanted to stake something, and Buffy cherished a small hope that Giles’ anger was directed more at the vampire than at her. She had no time to put it to the test, though, as Robin, Dawn, and a male nurse quickly joined the impromptu gathering, and Giles fluctuated between anger and embarrassment at having an ever expanding audience.

“For the love of god, I’m trying to get dressed here,” he pleaded. “Can I have a little privacy, please?”

The nurse spoke. “Now, Rupert. I thought we agreed you were going to stay overnight for observation?”

“ _We_ ,” Giles stressed the ‘we’ part with a great deal of sarcasm, “did not.” His embarrassment threatened to reach boiling point. “I will sign whatever piece of paper you like to discharge myself, but I cannot stay here.” He pulled his clothes in front of his stomach defensively and addressed the group. “Now I am touched by everyone’s concern, but I am not conducting any further conversation without having put my trousers on, so would you all now please leave!”

They withdrew and Giles pulled the curtain back so savagely it almost ripped from the railings. Robin took the opportunity to get a medical update from the nurse.

“The wound seems to have been pretty clean but we’ve updated his shots,” the young man in scrubs said. “There are stiches and he will need to keep follow up appointments to check for infection.”

Dawn took charge. “I’ll arrange those and make sure he attends.”

The nurse dropped his voice. “And he should really stay here over night.”

He did not drop it far enough, though, because an angry British voice responded, “Not going to bloody well happen.”

“Is there something we should be concerned over?” asked Robin.

Buffy whispered, “Is he going to die?”

The young man looked puzzled. “No, nothing like that. His heart is strong, no sign of disease. No, we’re more worried about his emotional status, he seems very easily irritated. Has he been under any kind of stress at work lately?”

“Ha!” Giles snorted from behind the curtain.

“I think it’s fair to say the elevated levels of irascibility are pretty normal for him,” Robin said diplomatically. “So if he wants to check out, then we should let him.” Buffy knew what he was thinking: Giles under the curse tended to hulk out at any form of confinement. “He can stay at my place tonight,” Robin added. “I have security.”

“No,” Buffy ground her teeth a little. “Giles is staying with me and Dawn.”

Angel offered his opinion. “Is that wise? It’s only a small apartment.”

Dawn cut in sweetly deliberately misunderstanding him. “Why? He’s not that tall. Giles is my guest. You’ll have to find another couch, Angel.”  
  
...

 

The two sisters practically kidnapped Giles into a cab as soon as he was officially discharged, leaving Robin to deal with Angel. The vampire had not objected to the arrangements nor made any suggestion he would see them thee next day, which made Buffy wonder how much of the situation he really did understand. Whatever it was,she was grateful. She found herself rather tired of having to keep explaining Giles to him.

While Dawn helped Buffy put fresh linen on her bed, Giles, rather sweetly, knocked on the bedroom door, to ask if it was OK to come in. He’d washed himself down as best he could in their small shower whilst not disturbing his dressing, and shaved too, making him look more like the Giles she remembered. His hair was still wet and rumpled and he’d changed into black jeans and a lemon colored shirt that stopped Buffy’s breath for a second. It looked remarkably similar to the one that he’d worn in Tivo hell, except for the difference that this version was in serious need of an iron.

“There’s really no need to go to all this trouble. I can sleep very comfortably on your sofa.”

“No, Giles,” Dawn said with exasperation. “I can barely sit very comfortably on our sofa. I have to get up early tomorrow to go to class. Buffy is a lady of leisure, and therefore she gets the couch.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to…”

“Giles, you were stabbed today. You are so not sleeping on our couch and that’s final.”

Dawn had gotten impressively forthright since Sunnydale and she brooked no arguments now. Buffy couldn’t help but grin as Giles swallowed hard and nodded.

But that had been over two hours ago, and Buffy was having trouble sleeping on the couch herself. She had curled up as best she could but all she could do was watch the light stream from under her bedroom door. Was he OK in there? Would he come out to see if she was OK? It was exasperating not knowing whether the past five days she thought she’d lived had been real or not. Slayer sense said yes, but if no-one else remembered them, then what did it matter? Giles still seemed uncomfortable around her and showed no signs of relief at having been freed from his torment. Maybe he was alive, but was he still cursed? Was she back to square one after all they’d experienced?

She tapped very lightly on the bedroom door so as not to disturb Dawn and took his wary “Hello?” as an invitation. Giles was fully dressed and sitting on her freshly made bed, his only concession having been to have removed his shoes. He was reading some trashy looking paperback novel and took his glasses off as she entered. She felt oddly self-conscious in just her pajamas.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.

Buffy broke eye contact and bustled into a dressing gown from the back of her door. “I was going to make some hot milk. Would you like some?”

He replaced his bookmark, put his glasses back on and nodded.

The apartment was small and cramped and blessed with all of Dawn’s books piled high on every surface she could find. The living area looked like it might topple into the kitchen space at any moment. Buffy kept the lights low so as not to disturb Dawn but she was conscious of his gaze on her as she worked the stove and poured the milk into two mugs. Giles took his and leaned his back against her refrigerator.

“Why was Angel here?” he asked, sipping the milk casually.

Buffy put the pan in the sink with some water. It was a small kitchen area and she had to brush past him to return to the counter. She tightened the cord on her dressing gown after she did so.

“He came in person to warn me about the Shadowmen wanting to end the Slayer line.”

The milk was far too hot, but Giles was busy hiding behind it for Buffy to clearly see his reactions.

“He couldn’t just phone?” 

“You didn’t,” she reminded him.

“He let himself into your apartment though.” He shrank back almost immediately. “Sorry. It’s really none of my business.”

His cellphone interrupted them from his jeans pocket. To Buffy’s irritation, he actually answered it and turned his back on her for some privacy, leaving her with two mugs of overly heated milk and no way to get past him in the small kitchen area.

“What do you want?” he answered brusquely. Buffy couldn’t actually get by him and back to the living area so she waited, and listened. “No, I’m fine. Well, somewhat impaled, but I’ll live….Really?....Well, yes, _mother_ … though, next time, could you ring me before I get stabbed? It’s not a premonition if you call it in late, it’s just smart alecking hindsight….yeah, sure…Not if I see you first,” he concluded and punched the call off.

The idea that he had a phone, that people called him on it, and he answered, still rankled with her. That he could be that rude to them, took her jealousy to whole new level.

“You talk like that to your mother?” she asked in astonishment.

“What? Oh, no. That was Mr. bloody-let-me-tell-you-your-future, Ethan Rayne,” he railed.

“What?”

“You remember Ethan? He was calling because he said he'd had a notion I’d been killed. Well, stabbed anyway, given I was obviously speaking to him, and so couldn’t actually be dead.”

Giles’ irritation did not obscure a very important fact for Buffy.

“Ethan is alive?”

“Oh yes, insufferable as ever and twice as unhelpful. I suggested he call me in advance next time. Be far less painful.”

She thought she would cry, Ethan was alive and remembered, but Giles didn’t? Why should he? Everything had been reset. That’s what the brothers did of course, rewind and replay, but Buffy didn’t think she could stomach the big reset button in her life.

“What is it? Buffy, what’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I think you did die. I don’t think it was a Slayer dream. I think I actually lost you.”

“Ah.” There was a dreadful moment when she thought she’d gone too far, that he’d think her crazy but then suddenly, beautifully,  he took his glasses off and started to clean them on the hem of his shirt. “I’d rather hoped that was the painkillers, or the shock. It’s all a bit fuzzy and blurred. Like a dream.” He looked up. “How long was I dead?”

“Five days. I couldn't find a way to get you back any sooner, I'm sorry.”

Giles dropped his gaze as he tried to work it out. “Feels like longer and yet when I woke up, it felt like I’d lost something important. I think rather a lot happened in that time,” he said very quietly as if he were ashamed of it, and Buffy felt her hopes erode again. If it were hazy for him, a dream, then the very vivid night they had spent together could have been forgotten altogether.

“But why would Ethan call? What’s it got to do with him?”

“Because he crossed over to find you, only he got killed just outside the Church Du Lac by your little pal, Bitchy the Vampire-ho.” She regretted the bitterness of her tone, but Giles only blinked in disbelief.

“But that can’t have been Ethan…He wouldn’t ordinarily be seen dead at a church.”

“Well, hey, whaddyaknow, irony,” she shrugged.

“He always said they were bad for him." Giles continued to ponder to himself.

“Yes, and why is that, by the way?”

“On account of he once got married in one…” He pulled himself together. “ _Ethan_ came to find me?”

“It didn’t look like him, of course due to…” She couldn’t remember exactly why, but it didn’t matter. “Some contrivance, so we had to be in disguise.”

Giles went very pale and Buffy thought she couldn’t actually hear his heart thump. “ _We?_ ” he said in a strangled voice.

There was an extremely awkward silence during which Buffy deduced not everything was a hazy dream-like blur for Rupert Giles. He was looking about as stunned and upset as if he’d been told as a child his pet dog had been run over.

“Yes, well,” Buffy snipped. “I sincerely hope you didn't think that was Faith.”

“But… but… but… Oh god.”  Giles’ coloring morphed from pale to crimson in front of her very eyes. “You… we… I… you… Oh god,” he stammered on.

He really wasn’t being very gallant about the revelation and it irked Buffy considerably.

“Are you going to be trying for sentences anytime soon?” she prompted coolly.

“Oh god…we…” Giles started opening cupboard doors and drawers, pulling pans and crashing them on to the stove for something to do. Buffy folded her arms and watched his flapping performance. “Are you hungry?” he asked in a flushed and slightly high pitched voice. He opened the refrigerator door and buried his head inside. “I could cook something. You’ll feel better with something inside you. Oh god…”

Buffy was spared any further whimpering by Dawn suddenly barreling out of her room to demand, “What the hell is all this noise?”

Giles looked at Dawn in terror whilst Buffy, feeling ever so slightly flipped off by his reaction, decided not to aid him in his discomfort. It was her turn to lean suavely against the appliances.

“Giles has just recalled that he and I once cooked together.”

He let out a sort of anguished howl, but Dawn looked singularly unconcerned and addressed Buffy.

“Is this normal for him?”

Buffy shrugged. She didn’t have a handle on what was normal by Giles standards these days.

“I have to be at class early tomorrow. So Giles, please, can you do your freaking out more quietly?”

The bedroom door slammed behind her and Buffy looked to gauge where Giles was on his freaked out meter.

“This is worse than being drunk and not remembering,” he lamented.

Still at the high end of the scale then, she pushed past him and into the relative open space of her living room. Giles followed at her heels.

“This is, this is... just… just.. you knew! You took advantage of me.”

Buffy turned and glared back at him in response. She’d reached seriously pissed off at the first ‘oh god’, and he hadn’t said anything since to improve her mood.

“You better not be taking that where I think you are,” she replied angrily.

“No, I don’t mean that,” he backtracked. “I mean, you knew who I was. I was the one at a disadvantage.” His voice was a hoarse whisper so as to not disturb Dawn.

“Oh, it’s not as if it was my game plan from the outset.” Buffy also found herself loudly hissing back. “Get over yourself, Giles. It just happened.”

She stalked off to the little bathroom and surprisingly, again, Giles followed. Her bathroom was even smaller than the kitchen and there was barely enough room for the two of them but he closed the door and resumed his whispered tirade.

“But why would you let it just happen?”

Buffy took a deep breath and answered in a calm voice. “Because we both wanted it. You were there too.”

“But, it’s just…just…”

Buffy didn’t think she handle another round of his deeply unflattering, stuttering, one word sentences.

“Giles, I’d like to be alone now.” He looked puzzled so she gestured around the enclosed space of the bathroom for his benefit. He seemed to notice the tiles and the shower for the first time.

“What? Oh, sorry. Yes,” he stammered and withdrew. Buffy locked the door and sat on the closed toilet seat. She heard him pace for a bit and then it went quiet outside. She should have expected his reaction. She’d known he’d treated her differently when he knew her as Anne. It had been with respect, but a different kind of respect to that which she enjoyed as Buffy. The curse to keep them apart had died when he’d died but now it felt like it might as well be back, because he just didn’t seem to understand in a whole new way.

She found him on the couch, still looking dazed. She brought the two mugs of hug milk to the coffee table and sat carefully next to him but respecting a suitable gap. After a couple of minutes silence, Giles leaned forward for his mug and blew across the skin that had formed.

“I’m sorry,” he began, “but this is all so very…”

“Wiggins-worthy?” she offered.

“Quite. Right, yes, of course you would come for me. And I am incredibly grateful you did.” He turned to her earnestly. “I’m just so sorry I acted inappropriately towards you.”

“You didn’t. God, Giles, in the circumstances, it was probably the most appropriate thing in the world.”

He considered that, put the mug back on the table and confessed, “I never wanted you to see that side of me.”

Buffy wasn’t sure where he was going with that, but it sounded hopeful.

“The side that has casual sex with strangers?” she quipped.

He frowned. “It wasn’t quite like that. Somehow, Anne wasn’t a stranger. No, I mean the side that cares for you.” He seemed to have lost his breath momentarily. “Cares that deeply for you.”

He stretched his arm along the top of the couch and Buffy took the opportunity to scoot her knees up and slightly graze his lap. He made no reaction other than a shy smile and Buffy knew that everything was going to be alright. She reached a hand to his sleeve and rubbed the soft fabric.

“You do realize you aren’t freaking out,” she said.

“Inwardly, you have no idea.”

“No, I mean with me being this close. Under the curse, you were usually bolting to another room about now.”

“You’ve only a small apartment. I think we’ve done a tour of all the rooms now bar Dawn’s. I sense she wouldn’t appreciate our company.”

“Oh jokes now? Funny guy.” She moved a little closer to him.

“Nervous guy,” he admitted. “Frightened guy… and oh my god!” He suddenly groaned. “I killed you.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t that good.” But he wasn’t to be deflected.

“No, I mean I thought the other Buffy was you. I killed you.  I made love to you and then I killed you in an angry knife fight.” He rested his head against the back of the couch and addressed the ceiling. “Bloody hell. Freud would have a field day.”

“You didn’t kill her out of anger or hatred. You did it because you loved her.”

“No,” He shook his head. “Not exactly her. Only what she used to be. I should have known it was you at my side, all along.”

She stroked his arm again. “There seems to be no more hell god curse.”

“No, that's gone, but are you sure about this, Buffy? About what it means for us?”

She leaned forward decisively, her bottom lip found his and played gently with it. Giles surprised her by probing back equally teasingly, and Buffy’s mind was filled with the possibilities of pleasures to come.

She giggled and broke contact to say, “Maybe you are that good.”

Giles smiled warmly with his eyes and leaned further across but stopped with a wince of pain and Buffy realized he must have stretched his stitches. 

“That’s OK, Giles. I think we should just go to bed now.”

“Er…” A look of alarm spread across his face. “I have been stabbed today. Several times in fact. I don't think I...” She just glared at his misunderstanding until he thought through the how implications of their relationship meant neither of them had to squeeze onto the couch to sleep anymore. “Ah. Sorry. You didn’t actually mean it that way. Still making adjustments here,” he added in sheepish apology.

Buffy laughed and rolled her eyes. “Jeez. I’ve created a monster.”  
  
...

 

Buffy lay in Giles’ arms, on his good side, and contemplated the darkness of her room. She was warm and comfortable but she couldn’t sleep. They had lain together like that for nearly two hours without speaking, and she knew from the sound of his breathing that he wasn’t sleeping either. The blinds at her window emitted only partial artificial light, occasionally pulling car lights across the ceiling in a sweeping arc. New York would wait till dawn to completely shake itself awake but till then, Buffy was left with an aching, all-consuming doubt about the darkness.

“Giles, what if this isn’t real?” She felt him kiss the top of her head.

“Try to sleep,” he murmured.

“I’m afraid of what might happen if I do,” she replied shakily. “I’m afraid what will happen when I wake up.”

“I’ll still be here.”

“But is this real? Giles, why would they let you go? Why would they do that? I mean, what if this isn’t reality? What if this is just another one of their games, and we are trapped here and they are making us jump through hoops for their entertainment?”

His warm voice tried to be reassuring. “Does this feel like torture to you?” he asked.

“No, but why would they just give you another chance?”

He sighed and considered his answer. “Perhaps I became less interesting to them? Boy gets the girl usually signals the end of the story.”

“No, but I don’t understand what’s happened. How can you be sure?”

“Speaking from experience; eternal damnation in a hell dimension doesn't involve lying in a warm bed with you. Not unless Dawn is going to keep bursting in and tell us to keep the noise down every ten minutes.”

His words at least made her smile.

“We’ll have to tell the others what happened,” she mused. “They might not understand – about us.”

“They might not, but I think that’s a ‘this’ world problem we have to face. And I can face anything with you at my side.” He kissed her hair again. “Now, try to sleep.”

But Buffy sat up and away from his arms. “I want it to be real. I want to trust this. But how will we ever know?”

"Alright." Giles pulled back the covers and walked over to the bedroom window. He pulled the cord to draw the blinds as far open as possible, and the darkness of New York and the brooding apartment block opposite filled the room. Hopping back under the blankets he said, “We’ll know for certain when the sun comes up.”

Buffy snuggled back into his arms and decided she liked the plan. She would know everything was OK when the first pink rays of the clouds glowed onto their bed. She would find her answer in the morning sun. Looking at her alarm she calculated they had about forty minutes to wait.

They lay together in the darkness. For all of Giles’ calm she knew he was nervous about the new day too. She couldn’t bear the thought of being puppets in someone else’s world.

“The sun will come up for us won’t it, Giles?” she asked as the minutes ticked by.

“Yes I'm sure of it.” He kissed her hair softly as he spoke. “Because you make the sun come up, Buffy.”

**_The End_ **

 

 


End file.
